Friday, September 26, 2008

What I Did Today

This is what I did today:
  • worked out initial kinks in concept of new project; in the words of Project Runway's Timm Gunn, I made it work!
  • created bullet point document listing what would/could/should happen (not a true outline - don't do outlines) in the project.
  • asked these questions: what are the conflicts of this concept? and what needs to happen in this concept?
  • answered the above questions
  • created Excel worksheet containing character descriptions (age, hair, eye color, height, family, books they like to read, movies they like to watch, favorite adult beverage, etc.)
  • finished Chapter 1
  • started/finished Chapter 2 & 3
  • total words written so far = 5,564

The above is what works for me. I don't do traditional outlines. I just write and see what happens. This process does not work for everybody. I'm constantly asking myself questions as I go along. I also know that thins can/will change as I go through the editing process. I look at the writing process as the building of the human body. First there is the skeleton (rough draft) and then there are the muscles/etc. (first draft), the organs (second draft), the skin (third draft), and lastly the characteristics (fourth draft) a person human. Each subsequent draft, each read through and edit, brings the manuscript closer to completion. The manuscript does not, just like humans, emerge fully formed. Conception has to occur first. It is a process.

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