Sinji The Kitten is now the size, shape and weight of a hamburger bun .... with claws. She is also invisible-against-the–kitchen-tiles beige.
Cats should come in furred electric green and fuchsia. Then they wouldn't get stepped on.
In other news, I'll be SL-ing at Books and Writers again. I don't know if I can add anything. But I'll try. I should be thinking up some exercises for mid-level writers. Not easy. I don't do 'exercises' myself. I hate to do any work that isn't WIP.
I've about punched my way out of Chapter Ten, largely by truncating it madly. I am soooo glad I took this long dithering about time, though. It turned out my problem was less how to think like Sebastian in Chapter Ten, than how to plot Chapters 11 to 15.
Yes! Now I see.
I'm going to throw out thousands of words, including the whole confrontation in the carriage. I'm going to move onward to the chapter where they're tossing Jess' stuff in her bedroom.
Yes! It's all so obvious now.
Plotting. I am learning this so slowly. Yipes.
I just read through what I think is your synopsis in Miss Snark's archives. I'll add my eagerness to pile. I want to read this book when it's published!
ReplyDeleteI'm working on my synopsis for the book I just finished. I'm finding it almost impossible, because I want to keep it short and my book is 150k (long, I know, but it's fantasy). Doing the synopsis is my current procrastination of choice while avoiding the HUGE task of revision--it needs a lot.
Anyway, keep writing!
Hi Gayle -
ReplyDeleteThank you so very very much for the encouragement.
The synopsis is for the WIP. There's another ms out to editors now. I'm nervous as heck ... waiting for replies.
Books and Writers Community is doing a synopsis workshop right now. You might drop by and slip your synopsis into the pile and see if anyone can offer any help.
I know I'd be delighted to see it. One of the SLs there is also in the midst of synopsis for a major-length fantasy ... so you two could commiserate. (Can I possibly have spelled that right.)
JoB
Thanks for the tip! I'll stop by and check it out.
ReplyDeleteI'm too much about putting the buggy before the horse when it comes to plotting. I always have to slow down and reign myself in. Otherwise I give it all away and am left with nothing.
ReplyDeleteHi Buffy -
ReplyDeleteI'm reading my way through Annie Dillard's 'The Writing Life' right now.
Let me pull up a quote for you ...
"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for laterr, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water."
I don't know if this addresses your plotting problems.
Hope so.
JoB