Many things requiring my attention, days running out! I seem to have the mapping mostly done, now attempting chapter breaks. Chapter breaks will hopefully help me see it as a step-by-step process; revise a chapter, move on. It sounds so simple, and yet….

Working on the denoument is tricky. You need to tie up loose ends, so the whole goal-conflict-disaster thing is less clear. At this point you’re not pulling the reader along any more, they’ve completed the dramatic climax and because they care about the people now (or they wouldn’t still be reading) they want the satisfaction of seeing how things come out in the wash. But they don’t want to be bored, so I need to be witty to the end, I suppose.

The other trouble will be disciplining myself to stay in ‘editor mode’. I know it’s mine, but I really do get drawn in and stop looking for “telling instead of showing” or “how many times have you used that word now?”

No one said it would be easy.

Oh, do I have my work cut out for me!

Ok. I knew that I lost my revisions to last year’s Nanowrimo Novel, Gift of the Ancients. I still have much of the world-building work, the recipe cards charting my Scenes and Sequals divided by chapter (good thing I had them and not just a spreadsheet, because that disappeared too), and one or two pages of revised bits that I’m rather pleased with (see Writing Samples at left). But I had done basic editing on all of it, plus at least half of the 50 000 words had been given a serious going-over with significant changes and additions. That’s the version I remember!

The version that I actually have, salvaged from the computer’s lobotomy, is the UNADULTERATED ORIGINAL NANO VERSION! Do you know what Nano writing looks like?! It’s all about quantity, not quality! I’m telling you, this is really gross writing!

I’m wondering if it would be better for me to re-write the thing based on the original Snowflake rather then attempt to renovate this monster! I know that it got better over time, and there are bits I’ll want to keep, but I-yi-yi! Shaking head in despair

I’m sure some good will come of this…somehow…

PS. And yes, I did sift through the rest of the rescued files. I unzipped 1500 zipped things in one evening, and searched all the .DOCs and .PDFs and anything else I’d used over a couple days. Very little helpful to the cause turned up, although I did get back my Hobbiton font. Silver lining. Yeah.