I wish I had more time to sit and really think about this, but since it's summer and my writing schedule (as I have been blogging) is sporadic, I haven't had much time to really think about what I'm writing. In fact, I had a few moments to write yesterday (compliments of a waterfall track on my iPod recommended by writer friends Jessica Brody and Robin Reul) and I managed to get the first draft all the way up to the scary climatic chase which takes place in the "ghost" mystery I've been working on, currently entitled "The Occupant."
But I can tell already I'm in for a massive re-write for Round 2, and here's why:
1) The word count
- As I've preached and preached until I'm blue in the face I don't "believe" in word counts. I believe that a story has it's own length and I don't understand why all YA books have to be between 50,000 and 90,000 words (or more). I just don't. That being said there are many in the professional side of this business who still believe that word counts are necessary and an intricate part of selling a book, so I've got to succumb to this particular dogma even if I think it's hogwash.
Now, the problem is that I'm all the way up to the climatic chase scene and I'm only at page 125. That's a problem. This means that there is some massive amounts of flushing out that needs to occur in Round 2 and that as it exists now, Round 1 is just bones and skin - no muscle, no meat, hardly any heart - if you'll forgive the metaphor. So...
NOTE TO SELF: Add meat.
2) Character choices
- As it stands in the outline, the main character is a hard core teen reporter who is determined to make her mark in her small town so she can graduate and attend NYU where she is sure all the best stories in the world reside, and given this hard core character I've created she makes some rather, well - I don't want to say questionable, because that implies she's shady, when she's not - but she makes some curious choices when she realizes she's being pursued by an astral being and some of my writer friends aren't buying her responses. BUT, since I haven't really had TIME to sit and read it all the way through to gage whether or not my writer friends are correct (Psst - they probably are!) I have left the draft as is, odd character choices and all. So...
NOTE TO SELF: Question character choices
3) Spookiness
- I'm not the skittish type. Even though I don't like spiders, snakes or large bugs I'm not the type to run off screaming when faced with them. In a crisis I tend to think more clearly than at any other part of my life, and this is a good thing because I've actually saved my daughter's lives (both of them on separate occasions) with my level head. No joke. One from drowning in my friend's pool when she was a toddler and the other from choking to death just last year. I've run into smoke-filled houses to open my elderly neighbor's fireplace flue, and I've faced off with a growling and snapping pit bull. I've also experienced things in my life which I cannot explain, namely some spooky goings on that have made me question the existence of ghosts. I'm not saying they are real, but I'm not convinced they aren't. Now, since I've started writing this book it has come to my attention while writing it that I may have made it only slightly spooky - not all the way spooky because well, I don't spook easily. I'm going to have to take a serious look at my main character's reactions (see #2 above) and also raise up the spookiness quotient because it's a GHOST STORY - it's supposed to be scary, and I think as it stands now - it's not scary enough.
NOTE TO SELF: Turn up the spooky to scary
SIDE NOTE: When I reached the chapter break where the chase and climatic "battle" is supposed to take place, guess which chapter break it was...Just guess! Chapter 13. And I didn't even do that on purpose! Cooool.
Anyway, I know I am getting ahead of myself seen as how the first draft isn't even finished yet, but I can already see the writing on the wall, and since I'm supposed to turn up the spooky to scary, the writing on the wall must be in blood.
Now, it's time to go bleed.
But I can tell already I'm in for a massive re-write for Round 2, and here's why:
1) The word count
- As I've preached and preached until I'm blue in the face I don't "believe" in word counts. I believe that a story has it's own length and I don't understand why all YA books have to be between 50,000 and 90,000 words (or more). I just don't. That being said there are many in the professional side of this business who still believe that word counts are necessary and an intricate part of selling a book, so I've got to succumb to this particular dogma even if I think it's hogwash.
Now, the problem is that I'm all the way up to the climatic chase scene and I'm only at page 125. That's a problem. This means that there is some massive amounts of flushing out that needs to occur in Round 2 and that as it exists now, Round 1 is just bones and skin - no muscle, no meat, hardly any heart - if you'll forgive the metaphor. So...
NOTE TO SELF: Add meat.
2) Character choices
- As it stands in the outline, the main character is a hard core teen reporter who is determined to make her mark in her small town so she can graduate and attend NYU where she is sure all the best stories in the world reside, and given this hard core character I've created she makes some rather, well - I don't want to say questionable, because that implies she's shady, when she's not - but she makes some curious choices when she realizes she's being pursued by an astral being and some of my writer friends aren't buying her responses. BUT, since I haven't really had TIME to sit and read it all the way through to gage whether or not my writer friends are correct (Psst - they probably are!) I have left the draft as is, odd character choices and all. So...
NOTE TO SELF: Question character choices
3) Spookiness
- I'm not the skittish type. Even though I don't like spiders, snakes or large bugs I'm not the type to run off screaming when faced with them. In a crisis I tend to think more clearly than at any other part of my life, and this is a good thing because I've actually saved my daughter's lives (both of them on separate occasions) with my level head. No joke. One from drowning in my friend's pool when she was a toddler and the other from choking to death just last year. I've run into smoke-filled houses to open my elderly neighbor's fireplace flue, and I've faced off with a growling and snapping pit bull. I've also experienced things in my life which I cannot explain, namely some spooky goings on that have made me question the existence of ghosts. I'm not saying they are real, but I'm not convinced they aren't. Now, since I've started writing this book it has come to my attention while writing it that I may have made it only slightly spooky - not all the way spooky because well, I don't spook easily. I'm going to have to take a serious look at my main character's reactions (see #2 above) and also raise up the spookiness quotient because it's a GHOST STORY - it's supposed to be scary, and I think as it stands now - it's not scary enough.
NOTE TO SELF: Turn up the spooky to scary
SIDE NOTE: When I reached the chapter break where the chase and climatic "battle" is supposed to take place, guess which chapter break it was...Just guess! Chapter 13. And I didn't even do that on purpose! Cooool.
Anyway, I know I am getting ahead of myself seen as how the first draft isn't even finished yet, but I can already see the writing on the wall, and since I'm supposed to turn up the spooky to scary, the writing on the wall must be in blood.
Now, it's time to go bleed.
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