5 on Friday - Set 170

Travis at Trav's Thoughts invites everyone to lay down a short set of music that takes their fancies for his 5 on Friday meme.

As I keep my head down and work hard on finishing the first round of revisions for the second book in my Dragonsfyre series, here are five pieces of music that could belong to a soundtrack for this story.

For a sneak peek at a scene from this story, click HERE.

1 - Wardruna - Sowelu

This piece is sung in a mix of Norwegian and Old Norse, and features scenes from the History Channel's Vikings.

2 - River of Collections from the Everything is Illuminated soundtrack - composed by Paul Cantelon 

3 - In Trutina from Carmina Burana - composed by Carl Orff

4 -Lento E Largo from Symphony No. 3, Opus 36 - composed by Henryk Gorecki

5 - Mars: Bringer of War from The Planets - composed by Gustav Holst

A to Z Blog Challenge - N

Welcome to Day 14 of the  A to Z Blog Challenge. Today:

N

is for

New project - Dragonsfyre Book 2

For those of you who have followed my book tour during the first half of the A to Z Challenge, you've heard me mention that I'm currently working on Book 2 of my dark fantasy series.

What does that mean, exactly?

When I say I'm in revisions, what are revisions?

Some writers refer to this stage as edits, or the editing process. Process is a perfect word for this stage, as it describes both the journey embarked upon by the writer, and the changes made in the manuscript that needs fine tuning to truly shine.

The manuscript I'm working on now is once again a hybrid between two separate NaNoWriMo writing marathons. My first novel SAINT SANGUINUS began the same way, as two NaNoWriMo novels each written from deep within the singular POV of the two main characters.

I had a very tough time marrying these two manuscripts into one cohesive novel. One of my biggest blocks was the problem with timing. When I wrote with only one character to consider, some larger sequences wouldn't fit properly with the alternating POV when I switched back and forth between the hero and heroine.

While I struggled with that, I wondered 'why am I doing this to myself?'

I'd pretty much vowed never to write in two split-up POVs again.

Then the next NaNoWriMo rolled around, and I remembered all of the surprising-even-to-me places to which that style of writing had led me. 'It's worth it,' I said to myself.

So here I am again, carefully easing pieces of scenes out here, fitting other pieces back in here. All with an eye to keeping my story's core solid, ensuring the framework remains strong yet flexible, like a suspension bridge.

I'm blogging at The Popculturedivas today

Join me at The Popculturedivas today for 13 Things to Keep in Mind During the Revision Process.

Poetry Train Monday - 123 - Plow Forward

I'm freshly back from the writers' retreat, so my found poem for today comes from a writing exercise book called Now Write.


This particular exercise focuses on revisions, which is a struggle of mine.















Plow Forward


Writing forward
Writing
Forward
Write each draft to the end

Don't, keep, stopping, and,
Going, back, to, correct
Write each draft to the end

In a novel especially
Write forward
Don't, keep, stopping
You will get stuck

Stuck with the first few chapters
If you don't just write
Through the draft
Write each draft to the end

Don't stop each chapter to perfect it
Don't stop each page to perfect it
Don't stop each paragraph to perfect it
Don't stop each sentence to perfect it
Don't stop

You need to get the sweep
The scope
Write each draft to the end

It will probably take you
At least three to five drafts
Before the final clean-up
Plan on more

Keep a pad of paper
Beside you
Write forward
Don't, keep, stopping

Jot down brilliant ideas
Plow forward
Jot down changes you'll make
Plow forward
Write each draft to the end

- Jonis Agee, 2006

For more poetry, Ride the Poetry Train!

Susan Helene Gottfried says I always say that the first draft is merely for figuring out where the book ends. Once you know that, THEN you can revise.

Gel says I hope the retreat was wonderful. Enjoyed this.

Wylie Kinson says Ooo - I'm going on a writer's retreat this weekend and I'm sooooo looking forward to it.

Revisions

It's taken awhile, but I'm slowly acquiring the ability to revise my manuscript. Revisions used to be so mindboggling that I simply didn't do them. Instead I had three works in progress stalled on the shelf.

Thanks to joining my Romance Writer's of America chapter, going to every monthly meeting for the past several years, soaking up the education sessions and taking in a few writers' retreats, it's all finally sinking in.

There's probably a very direct link to my collector's personality and my difficulty with turfing sections of my writing. I'm very Victorian in my love of clutter. I don't throw anything out very quickly. Including words.

But just as I've watched episodes of "Neat" and giggled over other people's crazily messy homes, I've begun to move more unused items out of our apartment. I used to be obsessed with aquiring more storage, but now I try also to move stuff along - through donating items, recycling and last on the list, ditching it entirely. My husband and I are making headway on our Merlin-the-Magician's-tower-of-topply-book-stacks style of decorating.

And I'm learning to turf the parts that don't work in my manuscript. The crafting part of writing is hard for those of us who feel like we're simply tuning in to a pre-existing story. Once I'd copied it all down, I never seemed able to get good reception for the "Revisions" channel.

Strangely, I never had this problem when I edited films at school. I took one look at a segment and trimmed whatever I didn't need. No internal arguments, for or against. So I've begun to look at my writing revisions as a cross between clearing away the piling books from the apartment, and trimming frames here and there from a film scene.

Maybe I'll look at revisions from yet another angle. I started poking around my garden the other day and saw buds on my roses. I love pruning them. I'll just think of revisions as a pair of pruning shears and my manuscript as a rambler rose. Nothing can get ramblers down for long. The pruning only invigorates the rose to new growth and more blooms.

Yes, I'll treat revisions like pruning and I'll have no trouble at all!