More Conflict!

I am very close to finishing the first draft of HM. Almost too close. At the rate I'm going, it will be less than 200 pages long. However, I suddenly realized yesterday that I still need to add more conflict. The good news it that I know exactly where to add it. This time I will finish it as is and go back and add a little later--just prior to letting people read it.

I did not have my revelation during Morning Pages, which I am continuing to write daily, but not long after finishing them. Connection? Possibly. I am just happy to have had it. I think the more conflict, the better.

I think it's interesting studying one's own process or processes in some cases. The Writing Nag posted the other day about writing being like sculpting. You start with a large block of marble and chip away the extraneous. Someone commented that they write skinny first drafts and add on as they revise so they thought the analogy did not apply to them. I, obviously, build as I go. I know Deb does, too. Deb responded that the sculpting analogy applies if you look at it as working in clay rather than marble. Sometimes you add on, sometimes you scrape away.

Is your writing process more like sculpting in marble or clay? Or is it more like painting a picture, with daubs of paint layering one on top of the other?

The Artist's Way

I started reading The Artist's Way. A lot of it makes sense. Some of it seems like some over-the-top New Age/Christian hybrid mumbo jumbo. I guess I have nothing to lose except the money I paid for the book and a new notebook. And a little time every week. That seems to be the best part--it shouldn't take more than a few hours a week.

The strangest thing she requires is a weekly Artist's Date. I'm supposed to go out, on my own, and treat my "inner child artist" to something fun. Okay. Seems ridiculous to me. I understand "filling the well" or "blowing up the balloon" as I called it. But why do I have to go by myself? And why is it mandated? If my well feels full, what good does it do to add more water to it? I realize I'm whining a bit. I will do it, at least for the duration of the course, but I don't have to like it.

Even though I have been doing what I thought were Morning Pages, I found that I wasn't writing them in the spirit of AW. I was thinking about what I wrote. You are supposed to just write. Stream of consciousness. That was different.

If nothing else, this will give me something to post about each week.

Brainstorms

They're wonderful things.

I was writing Morning Pages--a habit Deb got me into a year or so ago--and thinking about the fact that I haven't written as much on HM as I'd wanted to this month. So the questions started.

Why not? Because I'm not sure where to go from here. Wait, that's not exactly true. I want to wrap it up but the word count is about a third of what I need minimum.

How to fix that? Need more going on. A few more subplots. Maybe change the structure. Add more depth to some of the current subplots.

Cool! Now I have a blueprint. Decide what to add and what to expand. Then I will employ a little of The Novel Plotter's Toolkit (thanks, Giles!) and resummarize my chapters with what I need each to accomplish. Then do it.

Just that easy.

In theory.