Usually plotting–whether of a new book or revisions to an existing draft–comes in two stages for me.

Stage one exists of a) hardcopy plotting in my notebook, b) keeping random notes on my phone or in my e-mail, or c) any combination of those two.

Hardcopy plotting is the most common. I don’t use charts, doodles, arrows, tables, or anything fancy; at most, I’ll make lists. What it comes down to is that I ramble. At length. I ask questions, tell myself not to be such a dumbass, mock my characters, suggest possible fixes, change directions mid-sentence, underline important parts… You’ll find a lot of question marks, “probably,” “maybe,” “what if,” “possibly,” “OR WHAT ABOUT,” and “does this work?” in these pages.

Stage two consists of making sure it all works using Scrivener’s corkboard function. I’ve currently got three different versions of BLINK’s plot–I duplicate them for each draft. Here’s the latest version, showing my plans for the first part of the book:

The yellow notes are questions to myself, while the blue and purple tell me, respectively, to (re)write a scene from scratch and to significantly edit an existing one–except I just realized there’s a purple one that should be blue, so clearly my system is failing me. (Also, I’ve already incorporated some changes, so I removed the color for those notes. )

Since this book has proven to be very tricky to share in terms of snippets, I thought this might be a better indication of my progress.

Generally, I consider my procrastination to be less “procrastinating” and more “downtime”, which is necessary sometimes.

I mean, a lot of the time.

Anyway, I’ve noticed a pattern in that I procrastinate a lot more when it comes to editing than drafting. I love drafting. For one, I only draft when I’m excited about a story, so it’s much easier to dig into it and keep going. For another–and I think this is a much bigger reason for my lack of procrastination–you can measure your progress in drafting so much easier.

When you draft, it’s all about the words. A thousand a day? Two thousand? Four thousand? Since I’m not the type to go back and edit (unless I get really stuck), this is easy to measure.

When you edit–that’s tougher. In advance, you can’t know how much time and effort a certain edit will take (though the more you edit, the more accurately you can predict this). So how do you measure progress? Number of problems fixed? Number of scenes added? Number of words removed? Number of pages edited? Number of hours put in? It’s much less clear-cut. For someone as addicted to productivity and progress as I am, it makes editing a real chore.

I think another big reason might be the pressure. When you draft, there’s nothing to screw up. You can go all out. You can finally bring your characters to life. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be there, and you know that when you start writing you’ll come up with all sorts of fantastic new things. It’s exciting. It’s adventure. It’s discovery. If you screw up, no big deal–that’s what edits are for!

And then the edits actually need to happen and you realize–gulp. Now it does need to be good. There’s no more discovery, there’s no more freedom. You have a plan, there’s no room for deviation, and there’s actually a real, tangible book there that you might screw up with these fixes.

So when I’m getting ready to edit something… I tend to drag it out. Oh, I need to do more brainstorming first. Oh, maybe I need to do another readthrough. Oh, I’ll just fix this tiny thing here first. Maybe I should get another beta reader’s opinion before I dig in? And wait, I may need to abruptly switch projects soon, so then it’s really senseless to start on editing now, and oh look, something shiny!

Editing. I fail at it.

All of this is a very long-winded way of saying that one of my delightful CPs OKed my editing ideas for BLINK last night, which means I have no more excuse not to dig into edits. As in, now. Today.

Maybe this post will stop me from procrastinating?

What about you? Any major difference in how you approach drafting vs. editing?

I fully believe that, as a writer, you have to know yourself. Not because that means emotional truths in your work or anything — no, because the better you know someone, the better you can manipulate them. And, as a writer, you have to know how to manipulate yourself into Getting Stuff Done.

Or possibly that’s just me.

Example: This weekend, I’ll be in Germany for a workshop with a bunch of other short story writers. This is a Very Exciting Thing. We’ve exchanged manuscripts to critique and discuss and all that good stuff.

… except some seriously nasty stuff in my life is making it hard to focus. I spent all day yesterday fighting to get through three pages. I know normal procrastination (very well, ahem) and this wasn’t it.

Now, this is my first time attending this workshop, and my first time meeting most of these other writers. I want to make a good first impression. I don’t think I’ve ever flunked out on a promise to read someone’s MS and I don’t intend to start now.

My solution: I gave myself permission to show up at the workshop empty-handed. Life happens. It wouldn’t help anyone if I spent the rest of the week panicking over both Nasty Stuff and the pressure of un-critted manuscripts, then showed up at the workshop feeling like crap because of the guilt.

The end result: Giving myself permission to fail got rid of the pressure, which cleared up my mind enough that I can get at least some work done. Even if I end up unable to critique all the manuscripts, I’ll still do more than I would’ve otherwise.

The moral: Sometimes you need pressure. Sometimes you need to be nice to yourself.

The alternative moral: If you are contrary by nature, give reverse psychology a try

Every book presents a different set of problems. I went from having two books in a row that were too short to two in a row that were too long, and it looks like I’m going back to the too-short side of things with my current WIP. It’s a different kind of ‘too short’ than the others, though. This time, my problem is that my action scenes/major revelations follow each other too quickly, which means I’ve run through three quarters of my plot before I’m even half-way through.

Apparently a book needs more than just “WE’RE ALL DOING TO DIE!” action scenes in order to work.

Oops?

It’s fixable, but it got me thinking about how different my ‘to edit’ lists per book are. (I’m not the only writer who keeps a ‘to edit’ list while rough drafting, right?) And how similar they are. A couple of things always crop up.

• Plot elements and characters that need to be better established for later events to work
• Distinguishing characters’ personalities/voices more now that I know them better
• I often feel like I go overboard on the drama in, uh, dramatic scenes. As far as emotional impact goes: less is more. It still needs to be readable.
• The em-dashes. Oh my, the em-dashes.
• The sentence fragments. Oh my, the sentence fragments.
• The ambiguous pronouns. [rinse and repeat]
• Establishing the world/situation better from the very start.
• Streamlining overlong conversations and infodumps.

A lot of this is basic line editing, and the majority of my ‘to edit’ lists will consist of more book/character-specific comments. The funny thing is–I end up disregarding half of my comments to myself when I’m actually editing, because distance shows me that it’s not always as bad as I thought.

Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case with my current problems. Ha! Back to work.

– that’s when I know I’m working on the right book. It’s when you suddenly, out of nowhere, figure out how your character ticks; it’s when you can envision the world in perfect detail; it’s when all these disparate plot elements suddenly fit together. I live for those “A-ha!” moments.

The plotting phase is awesome, basically.

It’s slightly less awesome now, since I’m busy head-desking over these last three problems that refuse to sort themselves out, but I have faith even those will click soon enough. (And then you’ll be stuck with constant WIP Wednesday updates. Hah!)

Here’s another sign the book is turning into a book: when things don’t neatly fit into categories anymore. In Scrivener I’ll have files for each character, for the world appearance, society, history, magic system, etc., and at some point I can’t figure out where this one bit of info goes because it’s essential to so many different parts of the book.

Yeah, yeah, it’s all me-me-me these days. I’m slightly WIP-absorbed. Forgive me. *g*

In preparation for my next book, I’ve been plotting, which lead me to thinking about how I plot. This will be my sixth book, though the seventh one I’ve plotted, and I’ve had mainly the same process throughout.

Though I’m big on outlining, I don’t outline by chapter or scene, but by major event/turning point. “They discover X problem; they try to solve it using ABC method; this backfires, complicating the problem and forcing them to do Y. This leads to Z, which propels them towards the climax, where the following happens…”

Usually, the climax is plotted out in more detail than the rest. I need to know I can resolve something in a satisfactory way before I start writing. I’m okay with semi-pantsing parts of the middle, but only as long as I know where everything will lead. That also helps me set things up properly, establish bits of world-building that turn out to be essential, etc.

I do try to avoid pantsing too much–at least beforehand. When I have those events, I try to think of how I can fill them in. A big part of this process is asking myself questions: Where would this event take place? Who would be present? Exactly *how* do they discover this bit of information? Does someone tell them or can they put the pieces together themselves? The latter is preferable; which pieces would they need and how could they go about getting it, given their current situation? Roughly how would this unfold if I think of it in scenes?

What I rarely do, though, is plot out the character development in that same way. I’ll have a rough idea of how my characters develop, how they feel about each other and how that changes (kissing! It changes into kissing!), and what their main internal conflicts are, but I don’t figure out how that translates into scenes. I try to keep it in mind when I plot out stuff, making sure they wouldn’t do anything that’s painfully out of character, but that’s it. The rest of the characterization only gets sorted out properly as I write.

In my outline, major turning point A may lead into dramatic show-down B, but while writing turning point A I might realize that my character needs to respond to this in some way. They need to have a breakdown or confront their rival or take a drastic action I hadn’t anticipated. I don’t plot by scene or chapter because I want to allow myself that freedom. So while I follow the outline, I pants in-between those planned bits.

A lot of other pantsing comes in as I write, too. I’ll realize that I need to introduce another character to make a certain scene work, but that character would interfere with future scenes. Or my characters know more than they should, so I need to change the outline to reflect that. I’ll realize I need to set up a certain event better, which requires a whole new scene or plotline. Or that the character who shows up early in the book and then disappears for the rest of it needs a pay-off of some sort.

That, or I’ll discover giant plot-holes, or rework my ending, or realize I should delete a character, or…

Whenever something like that comes up, I’ll take a step away from the manuscript, grab my outline, and hash it out until it works. This may take an hour, this may take a week. It also takes many panicky Tweets, but the exact number varies. Then something clicks, I figure it out, and return to the writing part of the program.

It’s sort of comfortable to have this process hashed out. I know what to expect. That doesn’t make it all puppies and rainbows–I have a million breakdowns while actually writing–but I know to expect that, too.

In a way I’m looking forward to it: it means I’m making progress.

I kinda failed at keeping yesterday’s post as short as promised, huh?

So here’s a short post for real — I’ve still got 1200+ words to go tonight, so you’re welcome to flog me if I start rambling again.

Most of you reading this are writers. And since I’m insatiably curious about the experiences and processes of other writers, here’s a question that I’d love some answers on:

How good are your first-draft instincts?

By which I mean two things (oh man, here comes another list):

• When rereading your draft after getting some distance, do you at all notice which scenes were difficult to write and which scenes flowed easily?
• When you sense during a first draft that something is off about a scene/character/plot thread but leave it for a later draft, how often were you right on the money?

Back to work. Thanks for indulging me! <3

Wait -- first, here's another song from this book's playlist: Moon Is Up, by the Rolling Stones.

… Okay, enough procrastination for today.

I’d post a bigger update, but it’s a couple of minutes until midnight and I’m still over 600 words away from reaching today’s word count goal.

Here’s my current count:

17330 / 75000 words. 23% done!

One thing I’m realizing is that writing quickly is a lot easier when you’re completely immersed in the book at all hours of the day. Right now, I’m not — I allow myself to watch TV, play the occasional game, socialize, read books.

Not much of the above, mind you, but enough.

On one hand, I think it’s a good thing: It keeps you from getting worn out, it keeps you in touch with the rest of the world, it keeps you healthy. Having less time available also makes it easier to allocate the hours you can dedicate to writing to, er, writing.

On the other hand, I find that it’s making me run into a lot more mental blocks when it comes to the actual getting-words-on-paper part. When I wrote books without (most of) the above distractions, I’d spend every waking minute thinking about the book. About the current scene, about the next scene, about how this plot thread would work out. It meant that when I actually sat down at the computer, I knew exactly what to write.

Now, I find myself going, “Er… what happens next?”

For example, I know my main character has to do X in location Y next, but I don’t have the faintest idea of what location Y looks like, nor have I really considered how the transition between the current scene and that one. So while I had no problem getting through the first 1300 words of my 2000-a-day goal and was very optimistic about hitting the rest early, I screeched to a halt when I realized how clueless I was about the next scene. I know what happens and why it’s necessary for the plot — both of these things are in my outline — but all those tiny details, the exact course of events…

I should’ve brainstormed those in the shower. Or during groceries. Or instead of watching My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic just now. (Tiny ponies! They are the cutest!)

Otherwise, it’s too easy to write, come to a halt, and get distracted again. It pulls you out of the flow.

I think I’m slowly — sloooowly — getting a hang of my process. Given that this is my fifth book, it’s about time, right?

Now, while I’m off to actually go and apply this knowledge, here’s a track from this book’s soundtrack — Weak, by Skunk Anansie:

Man, that title is bringing me back to my high school Latin days. And not in a good way. *shudder*

First off — look! I drew:

Oooh man, it feels nice to be doing art again.

Thinking about yesterday’s post some more, I’ve come to realize a few things. Those small tasks I do during my ‘cooling down’ periods include drawing (see above!), writing/editing/submitting short stories, beta reading novels for friends, designing websites, writing synopses and queries, and doing research and taking notes for future novels. Which basically means that I’m more productive than I give myself credit for… just nowhere near as productive as I feel I should be. I mean, I don’t have a job (I get by on disability benefits), I’m not married, and I have no children (hah!). That means I have scads and scads of free time on my hands. In theory, I should be able to write all day long. When I don’t, well, I look at all the hours wasted and the result is immense frustration.

But that’s overlooking the fact that I’m in on disability benefits for a damn good reason, isn’t it? If it were that easy for me to get work done, I’d be out there, er, doing work.

Anyhow, I also realized that a) I tend to have a far more difficult time getting into projects halfway through (editing, picking up abandoned first drafts, etc.) than starting projects from scratch, and b) I work better with some outside pressure. Organizing myself is hard as hell, but having someone give me a deadline and a job to do? I feel a lot more stressed, but it does tend to get results — and, within limits, the stress is worth it. Nothing feels quite like that sweet bliss of Getting Things Done.

These are all good things to realize. The more I know about myself and how I work, the easier I’ll be able to manipulate myself into productivity. We’re our own worst enemies, right?

I know I’m not supposed to process these kinds of things on a public blog — so long, professionalism! — and I promise I’m not going to make a habit out of it. But I do think it’s important to be at least somewhat open about these kinds of things. If everyone just talks about sunshine and rainbows all the time, we start to think we’re alone when things take a turn downward. And we never, ever are.

Besides: it makes all the sunshine and rainbows even better.

… what? I couldn’t decide on a title!

So here’s the deal, short and sweet: I am so mind-numbingly frustrated right now. Not because I’m on sub, though I get that would be the logical conclusion to draw, but because, well, I’m just at That Stage in my process. [Warning: excessive whining ahead. Avoid if possible.]

It goes like this:

1. Get really excited about project.
2. Work on said project day and night. Be outrageously productive.
3. After a month, start getting tired and/or distracted by real life responsibilities.
4. Promise self to return to work after a week or two of resting/catching up.
5. Do not actually return to work.
6. Tell self, “Well, that’s all right. Look at how productive I was just now! I need some time to recharge. Plus, it’ll allow me to get caught up on all these other minor tasks that need doing.”
7. Catch up on approximately half the tasks that need doing. Start getting antsy.
8. Realize you haven’t worked on anything major in a month. Start planning to get back to work.
9. Write two sentences. Stare at screen.
10. Realize you’ve been spending all your free hours playing FreeCell and catching up on episodes of [insert shiny TV series here]
11. Realize that you haven’t worked on anything major in two months, and really, you’re plenty rested and recharged now, there’s no excuse, and no, those minor projects don’t count as productivity.
12. Plan to get back to work. For real this time. Like, for real for real. After this bout of FreeCell.
13. Do not actually get back to work.
14. Write another two sentences. Stare at screen some more.
15. Delete two sentences.
16. Dissolve into sobbing mess of a worthless, unproductive, good-for-nothing human being whose only redeeming quality is her admittedly quite impressive skill at FreeCell.
17. Stop beating self up. Remember that, oh yeah, it always goes like this.
18. Hm, what’s this shiny project about again?
19. See step one. Rinse & repeat.

It’s always like this. If it weren’t for the magic of that productive period, I’d get nothing done ever — and everything outside of that period is really, really exhausting.

But it’s also very recognizable. So after a really awful couple of days/weeks, I sincerely hope I’m ready for step 1/2 again. Wish me luck, yes?