Tiffany Rambles

I've been stuck on my new part 1, chapters 1-4 of the 6 in all, for months now. This is moreso because I've been all over the place in other matters of life, and I've already scheduled so much that writing is something I can't schedule any more. I write now whenever I can find an open interval. Like, for instance, hopefully tonight when I finish critiquing for the day.

I've also been stuck because I keep going back and editing the previous chapters every time I complete or work on a new one. I'm in an editing mood because I've been on such a critiquing and reviewing role. Anyway, I think this is a silly, counter productive thing to do. When I talk to writers who do that, definitely writers working on their first work, I tell them to just write without looking back. At the least, I've written without looking back (until the loooong editing process, where I pass my novel out to many others) five times. But this 6th draft? It somehow feels different. I've been working with all the other chapters for years. The part 1 in this version is entirely new, and it forces me to slow the plot down and build on characterization.

This, time, though, I think it's for good reason. I changed chapters 2-4 specifically to add little bits of foreshadowing that will build up and spill over in Chapter 5. I want Alecia to have a believable freak out and to be smart enough to sense all the messages and want to escape, but not so smart as to have any idea how. The key word is believable, with proper build up in small increments throughout every chapter before.

After this blog post, I'm gonna work on critiquing (which should take me no more than an hour) and then plot out chapter 4. There are a gazillion other things I want to do and can easily do: clean out my favorites (it's terrifying), fix my computer's desktop (it's also terrifying, but less so), read all of Zoe Winter's blog posts from start to recent, stalk everything to do with 'Theory of a Deadman,' watch a Let's Play of Dead Space, read through all these free magazines....

But I won't do these things. I'll start to do these things, I'm quite sure, but then the muse in me will scream at my inability to get this damn thing finished another time (I've already done it 5 times; I should be able to do it now), and I WILL at least complete the outline for Chapter 4. It's an interesting one, from the point of view of another character that won't be truly introduced until book 2.