Wednesday, April 05, 2006

My Office

Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning? ~ Coleman Cox

Yesterday, I cleaned up my office.

Oh, it's not pristine, but it's much, much neater. I went through the piles of books and papers shoved onto each bookshelf and tossed what I didn't need, realized I had some duplicate books and also figured out that I have w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y too many spiral notepads. I bought them on sale at Staples for $0.10 each and went a little crazy.

This morning, I came downstairs into the office and thought I'd lost my way. It just didn't look right. Or feel right. Weird.

I did no writing yesterday. I tried, but my story is boring me to tears. I gotta figure if I'm bored, y'all will be even more bored so it needed a fix. So, though I didn't actually put pen to paper, I did spend a lot of time contemplating.

And I realized that some major plot points need changing - some will be deleted altogether, some will be shifted to different places in the book. Half of me is excited, because it'll make the story better. But the other half just wants to curl up in a ball and cry because it's going to take a lot of work.

*sigh*

Today, I hope to start making the changes and, ideally, I'd like to finish the process in the next month or so. Is that realistic?

Part of this is all Donald Maass's fault - damn him anyway. His blasted workbook is making me think.

There ought to be a law.

4 comments:

Ceri Hebert said...

First of all, you can't have too many spiral notebooks. I love them. I love finding one that actually has blank pages. My kids like them as much as I do and I'll find notebook after notebook filled with doodles.

I did a bit of writing, but no editing like I should be doing. I'm going to give myself a bit of a break, work on some crits, post the rest of my chapters to my crit group and in the meantime work on something new. Well, sort of new. I went through all these old writing prompts and exercises I've done over the past few years and there are some good starts. I'm kinda psyched.

Judy said...

I need to do some organizing in my "office" as well. I'm trying to get DH to build me some shelves so we can get things off the floor.

I don't have an actual office... we have the computer in the corner of our living room, which I like. That means we can still be together even if one of us is on the computer.

Charity Tahmaseb said...

I hate to say it, but I'm kind of digging the whole process. I feel as though the whole book has opened up for me. I want to smack my hand against my forehead each time I come up with something new: how could I've missed that!

I'm going through the whole workbook and making tons of notes, but I'm not doing a lot of manuscript revision until I get to the end and can sort some things out, although I may write a new scene or two to test drive.

But that way, I'm not repeatedly making changes within the manuscript itself until I'm pretty sure I want those changes there.

Ceri Hebert said...

I don't have a real office either. I have a desk with my desktop which is kind of the household catchall. I use my laptop which is on the dining room table.

I read a book ages ago by Kathryn Falk on how to write a romance and get it published. I loved it. And she talked about creating the right setting to write in. Well no wonder its taken me so long...my writing environment is ALL wrong. I should have the candles and flowers and soft music etc.... instead I have kids toys, and a Bob the punching bag man.

I really want my office.

I've never been to Trader Joe's. My friend loves it, but she lives a lot closer. I'm not used to driving in the "big city" so I tend to stay away from that part of Nashua/Tyngsboro. Unless of course its to go to the Outback or Smokey Bones.