Well this is odd...

Facing an old adage

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In this issue:

Facing an old adage
Writing Prompt
WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

Facing an old adage

So this is odd.

I’m staring down . . . the first plot point. 🤔 What? The break into Act 2? The thing that makes this story this story. Is facing that down a thing?

Apparently so.

So I’ve got that weird opening detail and the weird event that just happened, which I’m 95% sure is just an inciting incident, and now I’m wondering: What is this thing? Where is this going?

I have no idea, and so far, grabbing my tools isn’t helping me.

Okay, maybe I’m not sitting down with them with real intention of moving forward. There. I admitted it.

In my defense (read: let me make an excuse), I’ve been focused on other life things. And I signed up for this class that starts in mid July, and that kind of, I guess, gave me permission to relax a bit on writing new words, though I’m still making progress by setting a timer for an hour. I get an average of 550 words. But that’s not nothing. That’s progress. Meanwhile I have more brain energy to focus on fishing my revision project before the class starts.

Ugh. The revision project. I love the story, but . . . ugh. I’ve finished the first three parts so far. So I’ve only got Part 4 to finish revising, and I’ve been putting it off. And I finally figured out why. It’s because there’s a character who’s not currently in the climax who needs to be there. Leaving him out was a choice I made while outlining, to make sure the Hero Takes The Final Action Alone. But after applying the series question tool as one of the many tools I’ve tried to get myself going again, I finally realized that his question can’t be answered unless he’s in the climax and that Hero can still take the final action whether this guy’s also there or not. On the plus side, this part of the story is about half the length it should be to balance out the rest of the story, so adding this character in should add words.

So that’s that, but getting back into the groove of revising is going slowly. The not-revising break kind of hazed out of my mind what was working about my revision process, so I’ve had to focus on remember/figuring out what was working, what I was trying to do (take what was good of my zero draft and redo what’s a mess). Anyway, bleh. But I’m getting back into it.

What’s that old adage?

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.²

Sure, we could see this as annoying, but I choose to embrace it. It means I get to be forever learning. And that’s great, because learning keeps us youthful.

Writing Prompt

• Character: ALCHEMIST
  Light Attribute: Transformation of base motives and goals into golden wisdom.
  Shadow Attributes: Misuse of the power and knowledge that came through spiritual practice.

• Setting: A cottage.

• Object: A telescope, a logbook, a teacup.

• Emotion: PROUD. Honored, satisfied, pleased.

WWT Tool Kit Craft Card

As mentioned before, I’m making a deck of craft cards to quickly remind myself of techniques while also having a convenient place to keep track of elements like character, conflict, and theme specific to each story. This week’s card is a reminder about the basics.

Thank you for reading!

I hope this helped you, and I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

WritesWithTools
site: writeswithtools.com
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/writeswithtools
wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/WWTWishList

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2. Google says Gene Wolfe said this. He looks like a guy who’d know.