Instinct AND Conscious Awareness! YAY!!

[LisaM]

I'm loving those worksheets. (Still on the B section of worksheets as I post this.)

I spent the whole day yesterday going through my ms and I'm still only about a fifth of the way through... There are lots of things that need fixing (most of the story-connected) but I also discovered three things so far that I really, really like.

The great thing about the worksheets, for me, is that when I first started revising the current WIP, back in July, I had an instinct/feeling for what wasn't right and went about correcting it. But with the worksheets I've gone from the level of instinct to conscious awareness - I'm documenting the WHYS on the page which means I'm thinking in logical terms, and seeing those words on the page is creating little AHA! moments. I now understand why something isn't working, as well as being able to identify (through instinct/feeling) WHEN it isn't working.

Running with instinct meant that I could come up with several different alternative fixes which would take the story in slightly different directions, and then I'd spend time intuiting how the story would go and which version I liked better.

Now, knowing why something isn't working means I can focus on that particular element and fix it so that it serves my story, the one I wanted to tell. This is a completely new way of looking at revision for me. Without being able to understand the whys, I was getting mired in the details and I couldn't focus on my target, my story.

Thank you, Holly. This is a wonderful, wonderful development - and it's only Week One!

[Panstygia]

Congrats, Lisa on your "aha" moment! That's terrific!

Nancy

[marti-v]

How cool! Holly gives us the best toys to play with!

[Laurel]

Imagine my delight (not surprise) that, upon clicking a twitter link posted by Writer's Digest called 43 Most Inspiring Writing Advice Posts of 2009, Holly's name was first on the list. Her inspiring article Never Try Anything really puts it all out there.


http://procrastinatingwritersblog.com/2 ... in-review/


Loved it!

Congrats Holly. Terrific Write.

Laurel (HTRYN: Kangaroos)

[marti-v]

Great article!

My goal is to live every day by that principle: "Try? There is no try! Only do!" (Yoda) I don't make it every day, but I do remind myself every day.

I have to. In April 2008 I quit my corporate job after almost 30 years to write full-time. Then the bottom fell out of the economy. I have enough savings to last a little longer, but I haven't sold a single piece of writing since then, and desperate times are coming soon.

But I write. It's what I've always wanted to do, and everything I think about relates, one way or another, back to my writing. I have lonely times, since my kids moved out, I have weary times, I have days when I have no idea what to do to make a work better. But I have no regrets about what I've done, and the more I write, the more I want to write. It's like I'm just now opening up to my true self.

And not knowing what to do to improve my work? That's why I'm taking this course. It's making a huge difference.

[mincontro]

I, too, am loving the worksheets. And, following Holly's advice, I am not marking up my freshly printed MS. Only problem: can't keep my husband away from it. He's already line-editing. But it's easier to print new pages than get a new hubby.

[Cat-Gerlach]

@mincontro: my hubby is the same but then, he sometimes spots problems I didn't realize were there.

@LisaM: Congrats for the breakthrough. I'm feeling much the same.

I just started on part 1B (reading through the manuscript) and I was more than ashamed to discover that I completely forgot to write a scene that I had planned in my plot-cards. Now I need to figure out why I forgot. The story seems to work without (except for some adjustments in information-flow). Muse is cleverer than me it seems.

[annelyle]

Running with instinct meant that I could come up with several different alternative fixes which would take the story in slightly different directions, and then I'd spend time intuiting how the story would go and which version I liked better.

Now, knowing why something isn't working means I can focus on that particular element and fix it so that it serves my story, the one I wanted to tell. This is a completely new way of looking at revision for me. Without being able to understand the whys, I was getting mired in the details and I couldn't focus on my target, my story.

Thank you, Holly. This is a wonderful, wonderful development - and it's only Week One!

Same here! I have so many fun ideas, all tangled together in my head, and I'm just starting to see how I might go about untangling them

Of course now I'm having to rein my Muse in, because she's bouncing up and down going "Ooh, ooh, I know this game - let me play too!"

(My Muse is about six years old and much more girlie than me )

[LisaM]

Same here! I have so many fun ideas, all tangled together in my head, and I'm just starting to see how I might go about untangling them

Isn't it wonderful? Such a simple technique - Know where your target is and identify what happened that you missed it and then fix those details first so you can amend your aim.

From now on my revisions will be less like new first drafts and more like revisions.

[njanuary]

I, too, am loving the worksheets. And, following Holly's advice, I am not marking up my freshly printed MS. Only problem: can't keep my husband away from it. He's already line-editing. But it's easier to print new pages than get a new hubby.

Just print him his own copy. Let him mark it up. Then when you are ready for line editing you will have all his marks to work with. You'll share the joy and the work.

~~Nancy J

[Zemion]

I got off to a slow start on worksheets, largely because I was noting what was good as well as what was bad. Since the first quarter of the novel had been heavily edited and polished, most of the notes were about what worked. At the rate that was going, I'd finally be ready for lesson 2 around he time everybody else was graduating. I've since stopped congratulating myself. I don't need it except for places which are ever-so-much better than I could ever have hoped for.

The curious thing is that while I'm often unclear whether something is properly a world or character problem, I've come to the conclusion that it probably doesn't matter so long as all the things that went wrong get listed somewhere. I may later come to regret this cavalier approach, but I suspect I won't.

After 110 completed pages of manuscript (25%):
1Bc turns out to be the real workhorse. I'm currently on page 18
1Bb is next. I'm on page 7
1Be is on page 2
1Ba is still on page 1
1Bd is still empty

To me, the important thing is that whether or not I'm using the worksheets appropriately, they're catching all the little problems that I always knew were there plus some I'm just now becoming aware of.

At my present rate, I should be caught up soon.
I'll have to admit I peeked ahead at Lesson 2. I'll be there soon.

[annelyle]

Go, Zemion!

You may find that, having been thorough in Exercise 1, you've already caught some issues that crop up in Exercise 2. I was afraid that 2B would take forever, because my book is packed with character and detail - then I reminded myself that we are looking for unplanned promises, so I started focusing in only on items with undue "weight" and characters with plot potential that goes nowhere. Fixing just those is going to make a big difference, I think!

[Holly-Think]

I'm sorry to be so late answering here. I would have sworn I had.

That 'I know something is wrong with this feeling' has never led me astray. It took me ages to figure out how to move what my gut knew to a place where my brain could make something useful out of it, though.

Congratulations. Getting that down is a mammoth achievement.