Day 2 of #MarNo, and I have written half a chapter total. I’m in a good mood this morning, which meant I had no idea what I was going to blog about. Weird, right?
But my boss is good to me, and gave me the perfect topic. Not intentionally…but still. His question was “Shouldn’t we have done this from the very beginning?”
My answer, which did not make it across email lines, was a sarcastic version of “But then we wouldn’t have had any fun”. Except I’m sure there were long strings of rambling sentences in there about sleepless nights, learning from mistakes, hindsight being 20/20, blah, blah, blah.
Because me being in a good mood means most of my answers are sarcastic and I think they’re funny. Me being in a bad mood means most of my answers are sarcastic and I think they’re scathing and hurtful. I think that means there’s something wrong with me.
ANYWAY…I was thinking about this question in the grand scheme of things, because my #MarNo book is a heavy revision of the past two years of NaNoWriMo. It’s taking two books I’ve already written, keeping the characters and basic concepts, and obliterating 90% of the existing novels.
And as I do this, outside of the questions other people are asking me, I ask myself “Why didn’t I do this the first time?” I planned. I plotted. I outlined these two stories more than I ever have for any other novel ever in my life. I know these characters better. I know their backstories better. And I was psyched about both books.
So why do I have to start from point B? Because that’s how writing works. It’s never perfect the first time. But if we don’t get it on paper. If we’re paralyzed by the thought that we might make mistakes, it will never be perfect because it will never happen.
Not the answer as it relates to work, but that’s why writing isn’t my job. Fiction writing. What kind of mistakes have you made in your writing that you’ve learned from?
And while you ponder that, I’m off to write procedural documentation. Something tells me that won’t look impressive in a query letter 😛
At least you’ve written. I haven’t opened my doc since Feb. 27. :p School needs to DIE.
Um, lots of mistakes. Like making the mistake of writing something without a plot attached to it. Plot isn’t THAT important, right?
My biggest mistake is going into scenes and stories too early and wandering blindly through them until I find my story. It’s a good way to warm into a story, or scene, but it means a lot of cutting later when you’ve found what you were looking for.
Oh. Don’t get me started. Mistakes. Are what make me learn. fast. I hate redoing things, so I learn real fast.
I’ve even started with the WRONG pov. Who does THAT? five times. yeah, only five. Like I wrote; I learn fast.
I’m happy you found your answer. It’s nice when we see our own faults. I’d like that. I’d really like that.
Not sure what I would consider a mistake. Most have been challenges at least, like having a first draft come in at only 23,000 words for young adult. Getting the second draft to at least 50,000 has been rough. It might be a mistake to start so many novels since that means it’s taking me longer to get anything ready for submission but can’t tell yet if it’s a mistake. The real question will be if having so many ready at one time will pay off in any way.
At least you have something to learn from and know what to do next time around.
@Ashy – plot isn’t important at all. Not really 😛
@Kate – that’s exactly what happened with one of the books I’m working on right now. The entire thing gets cut because I started it too soon
@Tanya – five wrong POV’s? That has to be an interesting story about that story ^_^
@Dawn – I don’t know that that’s a mistake, but it definitely sounds like an interesting learning experience 😀