Tuesday, January 23, 2018

the habit wanes

because, this...(from last May)

It's very easy to let this habit of reporting slip away when nothing creatively shareable is going on. Writing is like that. Raw first drafts are hard enough to share with other writers in small groups. You are lucky if you can find crit partners who will be both straight with you
I've bored the cat.
and instructive. I've recently been that lucky and have been giving most of my free time over to the first draft, which is morphing into its first major revision.


Stitchers, imagine, if you will, a piece you've labored on, mostly in secret (shades of Quilt National!) - an epic piece, say 8 feet by 22 feet - that's right, I said FEET, not inches.  And so the powers that be have let you know that No Way will it ever see the light of day in that form and you have to make a triptych out of it. Somehow hacking it into hangable pieces.

At first, the rebel in me said, "Fuck you and your pony!" but after looking at this steaming pile of  222+k of words for a while, I think I've found a way to serve both the muse and the commercial masters, namely, publishers. Only time and a whole lot more writing and rewriting will tell.

Update. Nope. Can't chop it up. Last word count, 229,745.  I'm looking for beta readers.
 If you think you might be interested send an email.      deborah*at*lacativa.com

3 comments:

Joanne S said...

You just gotta be YOU!! Do it your way. I read lots of books with tiny print in the 300 to 450 page count.
It's not that odd or crazy to write a BIG book. You just have to hold the reader all the way to the end.

Dakotah said...

Well, it can't be Cooper's The Prairie...lol

I'm working on my own books at present...a trilogy. First one is done, but needs another edit as, well, things DO change in crazy ways. Second one is just started. And third is well on its way.

I have found lately, as I'm writing about my life as it's happening, that writing is cyclical rather than linear...at least in my story...and can be hard to get down.

You're so fortunate to have a writing group. Maybe I should look into that again.

Oh, and I really did picture that 8x22' quilt in my head, haha.

Dakotah said...

Maybe you can email me about the beta reader search? I can't get that email link to work for me.