Links

Having thoughts about what to put in the Links section.

What is the purpose of this section?

I could link to other blogs I read so they're easier to access, but I get them via RSS feeds, so why bother?

I could include interesting or useful sites but that's what bookmarks are for.

So is it for the benefit of visitors? That requires the blog to have visitors I already have my website & LJ (which is more intersting than this blog). Don't see a point for the links section, really.

Mapping

I finally gave in this morning. If Jenn is going to insist on walking around the city, then I need to have a map, even if it's rough.

It's an interesting process committing an imaginary place to paper, or screen. Partly because I don't have any software to help draw up towns :( I do have a home architect for buildings, which is handy.

I start with rough sketches on the back of a piece of paper, to get an idea of the relationships between things. It's not just a matter of drawing a rough bay and sticking a river in the middle. That puts the industrial area alongside the rich quarter. Cross out. If I move the IA to the other side of the river, the city is now split in too, and there needs to be bridges that can still allow water traffic. Try again. If the main north road is there, then that put the shops in the middle of the city, and separates out the IA and RQ, and then the river can come around like this...

It's this process of discovery that makes mapping both fascinating and frustrating. It has to fit into what I've written so far but, just like the people, the place has it's own character that won't come out until it's committed to paper.

The one building I've planned out for this world is the guard house. I got to a point where the relationships between the rooms mattered so I did a plan. I thought it was a simple place, with the front room, a barracks, a bedroom/study at the back and some storerooms. I took many pieces of paper to get building to fall into place. When I did, I discovered it had been built many years before to protect the entrance into the city. Originaly, there were 3 rendered-stone buildings -- a small guard house at the front, a barracks & a long room at the back -- all surrounded by a high wall, but over the years additionally timber rooms have been added (kitchen, storerooms etc) that connected the original three together. Very interesting. I don't know if any of that will appear in the novel, but I do have a layered, colour-coded plan showing the buildings as they are and as they were.

An Odd Thing

I am rewriting the novel I wrote in last year's Nanowrimo.

Not that's anything odd about rewriting a Nanowrimo novel, I do this all the time. The odd thing is, I've only just completed the first draft and now I'm doing a rewrite.

My usual process, and I've done this for far too many novels and not enough short stories, is this:

* Write a quick & short first draft.

* Put it aside for a few months while I work on other things.

* Come back to it fresh, and do a rewrite. This is where I add in all the structure, make all that has to happen does happen and get to know the characters.

* Put it aside for a few months while I work on other things.

* Come back to it fresh and add in the emotional & descriptive stuff.

* Fuss, fiddle & tweak, while writing query letters & stuff

So it's a slow journey for an individual novel (this is why I've only got one submittable) but it's a sort of a rolling process that, on theory, moves all them closer to being "finish".

When I've tried to do a two-draft novel (with one major) rewrite, I've got bogged down because I was trying to do too much. It's also hard to say "Just get it down and fix it in the rewrite" when you don't intend to do a rewrite. So this is my process that works for me.

Enter Falcon.

This novel's coming-to-be was different from the start, but that's another post. Come November, it took me about *mumble* days to write and then I went off to concentre on exams and other WIPs. Towards the end of November, I started getting whispers "Rewrite me." No bloody way. It was just over two weeks from when I'd finished. Instead, I started on the "final" draft for Fox, the other planet-highwayman books, because it's closed to being done. But I couldn't get into it, what with it being summer and all the end-of-year/Christmas/New Year stuff and this other novel screaming "Rewrite ME."

So, come the turn of the year, I went back to Falcon. There was this thought that it would soon become stale and I could go back to working on what I "should" be working on.

I'm currently partway through chapter 2 and I've discovered two more odd things. It's trying to be a "two draft" novel and working! And somewhere during December, my writing style changed. The words I use & the type of sentences I put them in has changed. I also prefer to work first thing in the morning rather than last thing at night.

All of which is good. But it does show that just because something works for you, doesn't mean it will always work for you.

Reply to Obligatory First Post

Now it's not so pink.

Obligatory First Post

I got to thinking, I should post over here a bit more. I know I do that every year or so.

Anyway, this is the blog for bits & pieces about me. Whereas Forgotten Dark is for photo posts, and Original Hero is for snippets of information so I can find them again. (I don't comeup with the names.)

I think it's a little to pink though.