Tag: writing

V-Log: An Entertaining — If Rambling — Monologue About #Writing A #Novel & Other Things

Enjoy.

V-Log: #Impeachment, #Writing A #Novel & Thoughts On Susan Orlean

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This one is a fun one. Enjoy.

Some Thoughts On Writing A Novel Seriously

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m quite pleased with how things are going right now. I would note that what started off as some heavy petting over wanting to tell a great story has turned into a family of five that I have to provide for on a daily basis. Writing a novel has completely consumed my entire life.

This has happened in large part because I know I have a very specific set of circumstances occurring in my life I have to exploit as quickly and as fully as possible. Some of the obsession comes, too, from having a brutal self-editor who has very extreme demands as to what has to be done with the novel before the second draft is finished and I feel comfortable showing it to people.

And, really, in real terms I’m still at the beginning of the process. I have to finish the first draft first. That’s the first big milestone. Once I have that locked down, then I have even more work ahead of me. At this point, the issue is how long, exactly, is it going to take me to do all the hard work necessary to be where I want to be with development when I buckle down and start writing the second draft.

But in real terms, I just have to enjoy what I have right now. I can’t help that I like to talk and I have no friends. That’s just who I am. Anyway. We’ll see.

Now Things Get Interesting With The #Novel

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am hurtling towards the novel’s midpoint. Once I get to the midpoint, the tempo of the novel speeds up considerably. I’m now on the cusp of writing a really important scene because it introduces a risky — but necessary — aspect to the plot.

It’s risky in a Phoebe Waller-Bridge type of way. I’m going to challenge the audience not to accept the orthodoxy on an very, very touchy subject. But the novel is meant to encompass the entirety of the clusterfuck that is the Trump Era so I feel my hand is forced. The great thing about the conceit of the novel is it lends itself to being my own Apocalypse Now. I have the opportunity to talk about a wide swath of the Trump Era in a fast paced, fun manner.

But by definition there’s also a good chance I’m going to piss a whole lot of people off. But just like Waller-Bridge, I’m not going to choke. I’m not going to blink. I’m going to wade into a situation where the media narrative is there is a right and true way. The great irony of it all is, of course, is I’m very empathetic to the conventional wisdom on the matter. It just fits the novel’s narrative to flip the script a little bit. Yes, I’m being intentionally vague.

The scene I’m about to write is so important I may wait until tomorrow morning to actually sit down and write it. I may write and re-write my longhand beat structure of the scene to really prep myself for writing it.

Anyway, the novel’s first draft is going to be a huge mess. But I’ve finally given myself the right to write shit. You can’t edit a blank page as they say. I just have to finish the first draft so I can turn around and do it all over again after I read it and annotate it for the purposes of revision.

V-Log: An Update On #Writing a #Novel & Maggie Haberman’s Weird Twitter Flex On Me

Lulz.

V-Log: Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel

Some thoughts.

Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & #Impeaching #Trump #RadicalResistance

Shelton Bumgarner

Some thoughts.

Thoughts On Writing A Novel Seriously

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One thing I did not expect is even if things are going well with your first-time novel, it’s still a lot of work. The reason is, I may be zooming through the first draft, but there are times when I have to pause for a few hours — at least — to figure out how to keep things spicy.

You’re supposed to have “a surprise on every page” and as such you can find yourself in need of a boost of creativity. For me, it’s watching movies. Watching movies is a great way to distract myself for a few hours. While I’m distracted, I often come up with solutions to issues with the novel.

For instance, I went to see the most recent IT movie and had a major “ah-ha!” moment when a character was introduced on screen. Now I find myself in a similar situation and I’m going to use some time watching the latest John Wick movie in hopes of fleshing out the period of time covered right before the novel’s mid-point.

Once I get to the mid-point, the tempo of the novel is set to change rather noticeably. Things are going to go a lot faster. My “all is lost” moment at the end of the second act is pretty cool. It’s delicious and covers a lot of really interesting macro issues in a very short amount of time.

But it will definitely be interesting to see how many notebooks I fill up with notes when I finally find myself writing the second draft. Once the second draft is done, I’ll show it to a few beta readers. Then I’ll write a third draft.

The first draft I probably won’t actually write — that will be the draft I hand over to some sort of editor to make my gibberish actual English. I’m hoping to pitch the novel to publishing houses no later than, say, August 2020.

V-Log: Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & Recent #Impeachment Developments

Some thoughts.

Sorting Out Managing The Massive Amounts Of Information Associated With Writing A Novel

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a very harsh self-editor in my mind. As such, I find myself wading into a thicket of how to manage the universe I’ve created. I generally know everything off the top of my head, but as the first draft begins to shape up it’s beginning to grow unwieldy.

Between the first and second drafts I’m going to do a lot of the nuts-and-bolts of writing a novel that to date I’ve not done. I’m going to do character studies and write a canon. But I think I may have accidentally learned a trick about the actual process of writing a novel — don’t write the novel as one huge document, but rather split it up into chapters. Then you can better manage what might be found within each of those chapters as necessary.

I’m a little reluctant to do this without also saving the chapters into one document as I go along. Seems potentially messy and unnecessarily slow. But I think some form of this idea will work for the second draft.

Things — do date — continue to speed along with the first draft. I’m going to be able to fill an entire notebook in longhand notes in preparation for the second draft, though.

This whole thing is so much bigger and more complex than I ever imagined going into this. And I’m still not a Gillian Flynn-level writer. But, if nothing else, I won’t be embarrassed — for once — by the final product.