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September 2023 in writing
September 2023 in writing I had planned to tackle the 2nd draft of the 1st POV in September. I didn’t realize how much I had riding on this second draft. I wanted to:
fix the overall structure of all three POV arcs, tightening them, increasing conflict, making sure they culminate in a satisfying climax; add description and depth where I had glossed over or skipped it the first time around, including many characters’ names; improve the prose, removing any modern day language, terminology, turns of phrase; adding depth to the world by the way characters speak and think; get into each major character’s head, so I would know how each would react, in specifics, to any given situation; have a better understanding of my world; improve my maps; be able to describe the architecture and fashion and currency and units of measurement; go further in depth in the religions, beliefs, rituals, superstitions, parables, ghost stories, … That’s a lot for a draft.
lazyvim and obsidian.nvim
lazyvim and obsidian.nvim Obsidian and obsidian.nvim I’ve spent most of my software career editing text in vi or its successors, vim or neovim. Not only do I feel comfortable in vim, but I find myself missing its functionality when I use other editors. While I generally enjoy using obsidian’s UI, I still reach for vim when I want to refactor or perform complex operations.
My .vimrc has gotten quite crufty over the years, but it’s worked for me, so I haven’t bothered fixing it up.
August 2023 in writing
August 2023 in writing As mentioned earlier, I finished my first draft on August 15.
I’ve spent the last couple weeks re-outlining my first POV, tightening the story, keeping the mystery intact by making sure every suspect has something that they’re hiding.
In September I want to write the second draft for the first POV and possibly re-outline the 2nd POV.
Re-outlining I’m going about this using a number of methods… I have an unpublished blog post draft about this.
convert.py, iSH, and the second draft
convert.py, iSH, and the second draft I’ve started thinking about the book as a whole again. I’m rewriting the elevator pitch / logline / controlling idea first, so I can easily tell if a scene doesn’t fit before I write it.
I have this long laundry list of fixes in Things that I need to get to. A new map that fits the story. Non-placeholder names. A stronger sense of progression.
First Draft COMPLETE
First Draft COMPLETE Finish[ed] the damned thing. (Thanks to J. Michael Straczynski)
The first draft of anything is shit.
— Ernest Hemingway
Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.
— Jane Smiley All great stories began as shitty first drafts. There are no exceptions to this.