Shifting Gears, Part 4: Feeling Like a Turtle!

Why?
Because RH's rewrite isn't progressing as quickly as I would like it to be, that's why!
I know, I should be more patient with it and myself, but after the way I basically ZOOMED through the latter parts of NR, I feel like I should be moving faster. 
I keep reminding myself that "slow and steady wins the race", especially in the earlier parts of writing a story until one really gets into the groove of it, but there are some days that I get really frustrated and want to just give up working on RH's overhaul for good. I know, I should NOT feel that way but I do sometimes and I'm sure there are plenty of other creative people out there who have felt like that at times in regards to their own work too.
Anyway, with the rant out of the way, things are progressing in RH's overhaul, even if it is very slow going. 
Friday saw more added to Chapter 2... Over 10 pages worth but there was a LOT of dialogue in it, so although it may seem like a lot, it was only 4,000 words or so. 
I also found that if I just WRITE instead of think most of the time, things DO flow a lot more smoothly and easier, which is what I was doing Friday during my last writing day. I kept things within certain "parameters" and voila, things went okay, once I got into the groove of writing that is! 
Remember how I said in a previous blog entry that RH's overhaul/rewrite is turning out to be a MUCH different story than the original? It is, and I'm thinking about treating it as a brand new story because of that. Yeah, there will be a few key things that are the same, such as the reasons WHY the main characters meet, some of their past, etc but other than that, it's completely different. Some parts from the original *may* be included in the rewrite, like one or two of the "over 18" scenes but not a lot. 
The timeline changed too... I'm stretching things out a little more. In the original story, most of the actual story happens within three months, or less. Seriously. This version of it sees most of the action happening within five instead. It's still pretty fast paced BUT more logical. I found in the original things moved so quickly between the main characters that even MY head was spinning and when I reread what I have for RH Version 1 on this computer, I shake my head. Of course, that was a learning experience for me if one thinks about it. It was my first attempt to write a full length novel and it wound up not only becoming a short story/novella, but taught me that having a number of details, etc are key, but one has to find the balance between them too! Just like the original draft of NR... What I have as "Draft 1" for that story NOW has a LOT more detail in it than it's original. The original three chapters of that moved VERY quickly and the first kiss happened only after a couple of weeks. NOT LOGICAL considering the leading lady's personality in NR!!! So the original three chapters were scrapped and redone back in March and the story as it stands now is better, more logical and believable. 
That's what I'm trying to do with RH... Make it more logical, believable and less confusing to the reader... And me of course! LOL So that's why the timeline is stretched out more in this version of it.
I'm still in Chapter 2 but keep in mind that a LOT happens in this story in a very short amount of time and the chapters will be longer than they were in the latter half of NR. Things will still be confusing by times but I'm hoping to wrap everything up nice and neatly before the epilogue, or if anything is left over, during the epilogue. Yes, some things will be revealed over the course of the story but like NR, not all of it will come out until closer to the end of it. There will be flashbacks to things that happened BEFORE the story opens and I already have a few ideas for those... Along with a lot of other things.
Yes, my "ideas" list is getting longer and longer, which is a GOOD thing!
I just hope this story turns out even half as good as NR's first draft did. If I can write an "epic" like that one, surely I can do this too!
Have a great weekend everyone!    

Shifting Gears, Part 3: Slashing, Burning and Updating/Modernizing

Day 13 after NR's first draft was finished...
To say I've had urges to work on it is an understatement... There have been days that I literally had to hand the computer over to someone else so I wouldn't get the urge to open NR's second draft and work on it somehow.
I've managed to avoid that though, and NR has been perking for over a week now. I closed Draft 2's file last Monday and haven't looked at it once in the time since then. It's still popping into the mind though and as hard as it is some days NOT to open it and work on it, I've managed to avoid doing so. 
The worst of it is, I just got a new printer/copier/scanner and I have over 2 reams of paper ready and waiting for printing. NOT GOOD when one has the urge to print out a story they just finished to work on it when it's supposed to be fading from the mind a little bit!
What helps is bouncing around ideas for RH's rewrite/overhaul... And actually working on the story. 
Yesterday wasn't the best day I've had writing wise to date but then again, I'm still getting into the groove of RH and out of NR's groove... Things are progressing slowly but surely and maybe with a little more time of letting NR perk and getting more into the minds of the leading couple in RH, I'll start picking up on the ideas and the actual writing part itself. 
RH Version 2.0 has a LOT of changes in it and is very different from the original in so many ways... The characters' professions have changed for one, the leading lady's personality is a little more "brash", the leading man is calmer and wiser than she is, and the family dynamics of both his and her families are different. I'm not revealing just HOW but anyone who read the original version of it will get it when they see Version 2... I'll probably get killed for doing this from some quarters but meh, that's okay. I still think that after the rewrite, RH will be a much better story in the end.
I've also been doing some research into copyrights in Canada and it seems they are different here than in the States... I'm not fully sure on things but I will be doing more research on them and may even visit a few contacts in the federal government, ones left from the time I worked for an office that helped people with barriers to employment find work. I'm hoping they'll be able to clear things up for me a little bit. The Government of Canada's website is pretty good but not all things are completely clear for me in regards to certain things about copyrighting books/stories/novels/poems, etc. and the clearer things are the better. I am NOT taking any chances with RH due to certain circumstances, considering how the original version was written almost 13 years ago and I passed it around to several people after it was done. Same with Untitled #6. Both are saved on my Pentium too and I have NOT touched the files for either on the Pentium in years...
Back to RH's rewrite: Chapter 1 is VERY long compared to the latter chapters of NR... It's over 7000 words and barely covers a day or so, and Chapter 2 starts off with a scene from later in the day of the second half of chapter 1. Yeah, a lot happens in this story, and pretty darn fast by times too. Thankfully, the first scene of chapter 2 was finished RIGHT at the time my bus time alarm went off at 2:20 so that's all good and I'll be starting scene 2 of Chapter 2 tomorrow morning during my "long" writing day this week. I just have to figure out WHAT to put in for scene 2 though... 
For anyone out there who is wondering... Yes, we did get hit with the remnants of Hurricane Sandy, on Halloween (yesterday) and it wasn't pleasant, although we have been through worse storms here. We had a LOT of wind, a lot of rain and it wasn't fun at all. We had lost power around 5:30 yesterday morning and we managed to get one battery operated radio working enough to listen to the news on one of our local radio stations. According to them and NS Power's outage line, the power was supposed to come back on around 7:30 and school was still ON (the school is on a different power grid than our house is on). Hats off to NSP, they got everything back up and running around 6:30, an hour earlier than predicted. 
However, things can still get wonky even with the power back on...
It was just after we had power that I was filling up the kettle for coffee (an hour late!) and out of nowhere, a HUGE flash and BIG BOOM ricocheted through the neighborhood... It was so bad it shook the house and several houses around here. I didn't think anything of it other than a tree or something else had been hit and hoped no one was hurt.
I tried to get online and the modem was FRIED. Thankfully Hubby worked the short 9-3 day shift yesterday and got a new modem for me on the way home. I was going to write anyway so it worked out good, I wasn't fighting with Son to keep quiet while I tried to keep from going crazy while trying to work.
I didn't know it at the time but found out from our neighbor across the road while I was taking my son around trick or treating last night that lightening hit a tree behind their house... It knocked out their pump and their phone line... And I figure that's what fried the modem too. Even with a brand new modem installed into the computer, my dial up is very slow and I'm thinking something is really messed up on the phone line because our neighbor's phone is still OUT at the moment. I'm hoping when the phone company checks the lines here, they clear up our line too so my accelerated dial up acts normally instead of getting me on at half the speed I'm used to having. 
Other than a few trees, the neighbor's phone and pump and my dratted good modem, we didn't really have anything nasty happen here. Things are good compared to other areas... Some places down in the States were VERY hard hit. Most of my friends from the eastern seaboard of the States have checked in one way or another but not all of them and I'm hoping they are safe.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who was affected by Hurricane Sandy.
I have a feeling that name will be retired from the hurricane names list after this year. It was a very nasty storm, worse than we experienced here with Hurricane Juan back in 2003 for others out there... Our end of it wasn't too bad, thankfully but the storm had lots a lot of its power by the time it got to Nova Scotia.
On that note I hope everyone out there is safe and well. Have a wonderful Thursday everyone.

Shifting Gears, Part 2: Moving On

Today sees a new chapter in my life. Literally. 
I know I was complaining in Sanctuary of being driven nuts because I was letting NR perk for a bit and didn't feel like getting moving with another story but things have changed in the last six hours... A LOT.
I don't know how many of you out there remember this, but some of you know that I had written a short story back in 2000, code named RH, on my old DOS 3.0 laptop and in Professional Write. It was my first attempt at a romance novel and well, to me, it was a big "FAIL". It was too short, the story itself didn't have a lot of details in it, I had a LOT of facts wrong and even the leading characters' professions were not that plausible, notably the leading lady's. So I put it away and chalked it up to an experience and let it go. 
A few years back, I decided to see if I could redo it on Word 97 on my little Pentium 90 and I did get a lot of it expanded, etc, but it still wasn't up to my standards and once again, fell into the "dead manuscripts" file.
However, I've been bouncing around the idea to do a full rewrite on it in recent months, notably after I saw how close I was to wrapping up NR's first draft a few weeks ago. I was starting to think that if RH was rewritten, modernized and had a few changes done to it, it MAY be up to my insanely high standards. NR is close but it needs to perk and since I HAVE to have something on the go or drive everyone including myself bonkers, I thought about it a little more today and decided maybe it wouldn't hurt to look at it again.
I printed off what I have on the Acer, my current system, and it's not the entire thing. But since I'm modernizing it and will be doing a full rewrite on it, maybe it doesn't matter. The basic idea of why the two leading characters meet will still be the same but how they meet, what they do for a living and other things are going to be very different... Meaning RH itself will wind up being a VERY different story by the time I'm finished with it this time. IF I can finish it like I managed to wrap up NR's first draft, and I hope I can get into it as much as I got into NR. NR consumed my entire life for months and if ideas for RH come as quickly as ideas for NR did the last six months or so, it will consume me too! Or that's what I'm hoping for!
So far, the ideas file for RH has been started, the first draft of the rewrite is on the go and it's still on Chapter 1. The actual writing part of it may be slow going for the first while until the ideas pick up more and more but that doesn't worry me at the moment. I'm still in the planning stages of this story after all and that's okay. Ideas are coming to me, bit by bit and I'm getting a picture of each character again, plus I'm starting to see things from their point of view... The leading characters are VERY different than the ones from NR were and it will be a challenge to me to get into their heads for a while. Their looks are quite different as well and I'm going to have to get used to describing them instead of NR's leading couple! 
In some ways, it's good to be back with RH again, but in others, I see one HECK of another long road ahead of me. Starting over with another story, another set of unique and hopefully interesting characters is a definite challenge but after all the blood, sweat, tears and other stuff I put into NR after I got back into it after a year in hell, I KNOW I can do this with some luck, some patience with myself and a lot of time and effort... And a few thousand gallons of coffee, plus several months of having the story in my head like I did with NR. I thought I had lost that story but it came back to me, and it turned out to be so much better than I thought it would be when I first thought of it back in 2010. 
With a little luck, maybe RH's rewrite and the new version of it will be half as good as NR is. I'd like to see it become a much better story in the end, just like NR did. It seems if I let something like that "sit" for a while (over a year), it turns out really well, and surprises me in the end.
Have a great Wednesday everyone and don't forget that CSI is a new episode tonight. Y'all know where I will be at 11 p.m. Atlantic Time, I'll be getting my Nicky fix! LOL