Unfortunately a series of life events, which have been ongoing since the spring, has underminded my concentration. Surgery, recovery from surgery, house hunting, purchase of house, packing, first half of vacation in London UK and the second in Nova Scotia, then more packing, final possession of house, moving into said house, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Crash courses in getting a mortgage, what to look for in a dud house, researching train schedules and maps for London, how water softeners work… well, the list is a long one, but my point is all of this took over my mind.

The upheaval this summer stirred up a lot of reluctance to dive into revision work for Ule. While I still worked on it in spurts, discovering that with a return of some objectivity toward the story, some of the revisions were unnecessary and a fix for a glaring logistic problem still hadn’t been resolved, I preferred not to immerse myself into the material. With books, DVDS, CDs, and the comforts of living steadily being packed away and sealed into brown boxes, my focus geared toward exercise and, dare I say it, escape.

Forms of escape, as a writer, included the following.

1. Mental Exercises

This time around, instead of creating scenes out of situations, I let the characters and what they were most likely to do and say according to their natures generate the changes to propel a story forward. Sometimes I would throw props in as a source of conflict. For example, having two characters struggle for control over something like a tv remote control. Then I would visualize the scene as drama, then as comedy, then as dramedy. Sometimes the story would reveal the beginning of a romantic encounter and at other times the end of a friendship.

What was most interesting is the number of derivations that can result based on the choices the characters do or do not make, each creating a version slightly different from the other. Often, I found myself wondering which of those versions were most effective. In the end, I learned that there can be more than one version that will tie in with the theme of the story. Settling on a version seems to come down to choosing what effect or impact the version will convey to the reader.

2. Reading

Returning to reading genres that I hadn’t read in a while, such as horror, romance, erotica and some sci fi, rekindled a nostalgia for a time when I had more time. (A preference for variety always keeps me jumping from genre to genre; that at least hasn’t changed.) Reading short stories and novellas online exposed me to previously unheard of, independantly published writers. Some were good and some not so good yet all inspiring for doing what they love to do–finding a readership and being compensated for their creative offerings.

Feeling a furious case of ignorance (which I’m still suffering from now), I installed Kindle on my laptop and read some non-fiction work on the publishing industry, story theory, and promoting through the Internet, again all material that was inspiring. It seems a great number of writers are paving the way toward effective independant publishing which allows them to write full time.

3. Writing Exercises

Just practicing writing which doesn’t require any commitment other than satisfying curiousity is a luxury I kept telling myself I didn’t have. However, after a few attempts at writing spontaneously, well wouldn’t you know? A certain flow began to return to the word outpourage. It mostly came from not having to be serious. (Lesson learned!) Writing exercises included scenes in script format, dialogue-only storytelling, shifting points of view and tenses (especially present tense which I haven’t written in for many years).

Sometimes I would use original characters or established fictional characters (a la television shows or movies) to save myself the time of character and setting developement so I could focus on specific storytelling elements, such as scene building, dialogue, mood, tone, pacing, et al. I started researching urban words and slang to get a better feel for their meaning and usage. (Ish is hands down my favourite!) Writing in profane and vulgar language helped to really break down some barriers. In hindsight, writing exercises aren’t a luxury, they’re a necessity.

So when you can’t focus on writing your novel, these three main activities are worth the effort and time. As a result, my writing style has improved and word flow has become entirely unblocked allowing for more time efficient writing. My understanding of story elements has deepened, as well as my appreciation toward other non-famous writers whose work may not sell millions of copies but are published nonetheless. And most importantly and strangest of all…

My focus has improved.

Basically, the difficulty I’m having has to do with not being able to see the novel in smaller, manageable units. I am essentially re-arranging timelines and changing chapter divisions, so no wonder it’s getting difficult to navigate the text. No wonder I’m getting lost. And the time it’s taking to make these revisions is starting to be a concern, because working within time restraints is a skill that will facilitate any changes requested by editors and agents.

The solution finally occurred to me the other day.  My husband and I are currently getting ready to fly to London, England for six days as the first part of our yearly vacation and to attend a wedding. After locating our London street maps and tucking them away in a folder along with our flight itineraries and Wicked tickets, it occured to me that if you don’t know how to get around a city, you buy a street map. How was my novel any different? 

Well, for starters, I’m the one who created the initial manuscript. Certainly the plot outline I created for the first draft could very well be that map, except that I didn’t outline the novel in full or in detail. Even if I had, chances are the final first draft might not reflect that outline. Essentially, I am the one who created the story so its up to me to go through it and map it out as it currently is.

This isn’t a new idea when it comes to the revision process. I’ve read about reading through the first draft and analyzing every scene for its key components, except this isn’t my issue. In fact, my map doesn’t need to be that specific. The looser, the better, and that isn’t a reflection of my personality… no, really… okay, maybe a little.

The map just needs to be brief sentences outlining key events. Not even full sentences. Just a few words. Anything to jog my memory of where important landmarks in the novel occur, so that I can get a quick bird’s eye view of the entire story without having to read through pages of text. I know some similar systems like to document whether these smaller units contain the conflict or are a complete scene or follow a change-reaction-action pattern, but that is something I will examine closer while making revisions. It’s moving around a constantly evolving manuscript that is becoming problematic, page numbers documented or not.

Once the map is complete, I’ll be able to review the events, rearrange them into new sequences, isolate a series of events into chapter sections, as well as determine which sections can be told from a second point of view, instead of trudging through the detailed text of the second draft manuscript. It definitely is not a perfect system, but completing a novel isn’t about perfection, it’s about closure by any means necessary.

While there are a lot of great guides and advice out there, sometimes its good to just sit down and work out your own system, even if it’s a bit flawed.

Endings are funny creatures. Recently, my husband and I saw the movie Skyline in the theatres, and we weren’t certain what to make of the ending. Without giving away details, the final moments of the story fall into a category of endings known as “the new beginning”.

It is very clear this movie begs for continuation with either a sequel or some sort of video game or perhaps both. Within the ending is the message that men have to become the monsters they fight to protect/save the ones they love. Of course, once you become a monster, there’s no going back; hence, the new beginning. But this isn’t supposed to be a movie review. This is about endings, or rather different types of endings.

And today, while reviewing notes to update this blog, it occurred to my Muse that Ule needs closure at the end of this story. She is on a journey, but the story is about a specific leg of that journey which occurs within a world she created, in which she needs to find a way to reconcile her needs with the needs of those around her. She needs to figure out how to be her self regardless of how others treat her. The ending of this story falls into the category of “resolution”. Of course, as one problem gets resolved, new problems come a knocking. For the sake of this story, those other problems can sell their wares somewhere else. I ain’t answering the door.

While I continue to make changes from notes, additional changes are being made—removal of erroneous words and idiomatic expressions, deletion of irrelevant facts, and so on.

The original sections are now being pulled together to create longer chapters.

The original 95,000 words of the first draft have grown to 97,000 words.

And the madness called revision continues…  When will it ever end?!

* * *

Recently a friend asked where I get my ideas? From reading interviews with other writers and artists, this is by far the most common question people ask. I told my friend that ideas come from all around, from interacting with the outer world, through experience or observation, and asking questions;  and the best ideas are the kind that just simmer beneath the surface of the sub-conscious, not yet molded into a construct by the conscious mind. As an example, I’ll get an image in my mind, of a young girl sitting in a dark room and I’ll start to ask questions and my sub-conscious will offer clues:

Who is the young girl? 

She doesn’t know.

Why is she in the room?

She’s being punished.

What’s she being punished for?

Something really bad. They even took away her memory.

What’s she doing?

Creating.

Why is it so dark in the room?

Is it? Look closer.

With this information, I did what probably a lot of writers do:  entertained the idea. I wrote a description of the image in my mind, incorporating the details my subconscious answered to my questions, played with it a little and then promptly filed the two pages of text away in a folder on my desktop, forgetting about it for nearly two years.

* * *

About a year and a half ago, I was Skyping with my best friend, who lives in North Carolina. We talked about writing and she mentioned that not only did she keep every chapbook or zine  I made specifically for her as gifts, she took them with her whenever she went away on business trips. When I asked why, she said it made her feel good. And like many people, myself included, we hit emotional lows in our lives and my bestfriend was no exception at this time.  I decided to write a story for her reflecting a theme of  how we all tend to lose ourselves as life treks on, and when we are most furthest from our true nature, we begin to hurt and we don’t know why.

* * *

All the above is meant to indicate how Ule the Unfurled came into existance:  Three separate intentions came together to create a powerful driving force for writing this story. 

1. To write a free story for general consumption so that I could strengthen my writing skills.
2. To explore an image that popped up into my mind many years ago and which I had rediscovered while cleaning up files.
3. To make a friend feel good by telling the story of a girl who loses her sense of self and rediscovers it.

It doesn’t matter what form a story takes, whether it is a short story,  novella,  or novel, and it doesn’t matter whether there are one or more more driving forces urging it to be written. What is important is you understand why you want to tell these stories.  Any answer is valid, but I think it’s important to have one. 

Who knows, maybe one day a reader of your work will ask, “So how did you come up with the story for your latest book?” And having a reason will add a new dimension of interest to your work.

When this happens, sometimes IT is necessary… IT being a re-write of a scene from another character’s point of view.

But what to do with the original character’s internalizations? Thankfully the new P.O.V. character has the ability to sense people’s thoughts and emotions to a degree, allowing some of the mystic’s internalizations to remain as exposition. Otherwise, the mystic’s internalizations were either converted to an externalization (action or dialogue) or deleted altogether.

It’s difficult to speak about this point of view character without giving away too much information. You see, one of the perks to taking this scene away from the mystic is that the new P.O.V. character adds an atmosphere of mystery to the story that’s very appealing, so talking about it in too much detail might ruin it for readers of the book.

What’s most important to understand is that sometimes to wake up a snoozing story line requires scenes which may need to be told from the point of view of an unexpected character in the story and not who you originally intended. This will certainly change the dynamic of the story, but it might be for the worse, so how does a writer decide?

I go by the thoughts and ideas my Muse coughs up when I entertain such changes. My Muse responds very well to well-formed questions such as:

• How will this change impact other parts of the book, if at all?
• How will this change contribute to the themes in the story?
• Will this change act as a conflict or complement to the main character of the story?

Sometimes I don’t even bother to ask my Muse these questions. She simply grabs hold of my mental wonderings and about a day or two later, while I’m doing the dishes or making dinner, she’ll tell me her thoughts.

In the case of introducing a new P.O.V. character, she can only express an overwhelming positive response and urges that a few other scenes be converted to this character’s point of view as well. By doing so, it will make the themes of the overall story more prominent, she assures me.

Although I’m excited to explore a new avenue with the book, some concerns are understandably being raised. Is this just some procastinating self-indulgence? Will it in fact make the story better or just different? How long will it take to complete revisions? What will be destroyed, if anything at all, in the process?

I say it’s time to forge ahead with these changes, to stop being so tentative about them. They might be a huge mistake or they might be the changes that make a good story great.

1. Be precise with marking revision notes.

Well, duh! It seems obvious, but you would be surprised at how sloppy notes can get when you continue working after a long day at the office.

So far, I’m stunned at the number of incidents where marks in the manuscript pointed to no discernible revision note. Sometimes there would be no note number at all. Other times the note number was duplicated. In some areas, it wasn’t even clear as to where the arrows were pointing in the text of the story, as though I hoped the mark alone would jog something in my memory and make writing a note unnecessary.

It really does save a lot of aggravation and time to be precise about marking changes in a printed manuscript. It takes time to remember things, and when you do get around to typing in the changes, you may have forgotten all together what you intended by that little squiggle in the margin.

2. Figure out your own system of revision.

All the advice and guidance offered by professional writers is valuable, if and only if it works for you. It’s very easy to listen and heed their information especially if you want to become a professional yourself. They want us to avoid common mistakes, save us time. However, mistakes are only a waste of time if you don’t learn from them. As a writer, making mistakes is essential to understanding yourself.

During the type-in stage of revision, I changed the format of the manuscript to adhere to submission standards. After working with the double-spacing, for a few days, I changed it back to single-spacing, because the single-spacing allows more text to be visible on the screen at any given time. Double-spaced text requires a lot of scrolling around which may affect focus and concentration.

While typing-in revisions, I also used the Track Changes feature of the word processing software but found it more of a visual hindrance. It may become very useful for proofreading purposes on a final draft, but given the amount of re-writing and moving around of elements at this stage of revision, the red typeface with underline it generates is visually annoying. So far, the only thing I feel necessary to make stand out from the rest of the manuscript are the sections which have been re-written, and simply highlighting the text is doing a great job.

3. If you’re not in the mood to re-write, focus on mechanical edits.

While a good portion of a first draft revision may require a lot of re-writing, sometimes the brain just isn’t in the mood. Why push it when it doesn’t want to be pushed? Discipline, you tell yourself. Phooey, I say. Sitting down to spend an hour on your novel is discipline realized. Why not make the most of that time?

One night my brain would not, could not generate prose. Instead of forcing out a few lines of re-writes, I cranked the music and spent the time focusing on purely mechanical edits. These were edits that didn’t require any thinking. If I struck out a sentence in the printed manuscript, it was deleted in the electronic version. All spelling errors were corrected, word changes changed, and split paragraphs reunited, just to a name a few types of mechanical edits. Part of this time was also spent setting up headers/footers and creating a custom dictionary for the project’s fictional words and names.

The result, a cleaner text which helps contrast any remaining errors.

* * *

Ule the Unfurled still has a lot of work to undergo. Re-writing is underway. As I stumble through the revision process, my brain is documenting better ways to make use of time. As an example, it’s obvious that I much prefer to write and revise in a simple, single-spacing format. Some professional writers have template documents already set up with the appropriate submission formatting set in place. I’d much prefer to sort that out after the story is finished and will record Macro’s to implement this formatting.

So just remember, if you’re a writer looking for ways to make the process better for yourself, try what others do then decide what works best for you.

Originally published July 20, 2010.