Monthly Archives: November 2004

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Books 11/30/04

I FINALLY finished The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. It only took me a month, but seeing as I wrote my own novel in that time, I think I can be excused. The letters themselves are compelling and extremely readable, some for the sweet affection enclosed, and others for the incredibly detailed descriptions of Persia and other spots. Virginia and Vita’s relationship was difficult to decipher from them, but I guess they knew what they were talking about, and weren’t planning on other people reading them to sort it out.

The only weakness I noticed was the misproportion of Vita letters to Virginia letters. This is explained in the introduction- apparently the original intent of the editors was to ONLY have Vita’s letters, an idea which I think is silly- if you’re going to have a collection of someone’s letters to one other person, why wouldn’t you include the responses? The point of letters is correspondance, and that includes replies. But anyway. They only included some of Virginia’s letters so that Vita’s would make sense, but in my opinion they didn’t include enough. They do include references to letters from the massive collection of Virginia Woolf’s letters, but I don’t have that collection, and even if I did, I’m lazy and want them all in order in front of me.

I just finished Stephen King’s On Writing, which was as good the second time as the first. I will definitly be taking his suggestions into my rewrite.

Current Total:110
Just Finished: On Writing by Stephen King
Next Up: Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

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I DID IT!

As of 11:35 pm my 50,000 word novel titled Cover Songs is finished! I uploaded my text file for verification, and was officially pronounced a winner, and I don’t think I’ve been so excited about something in quite some time. Now I’m going to ignore it for a couple of days, then see if it can stand on it’s own little wobbly legs and walk. Hurray for me! My world is a happy, happy place.

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Update

Just a little update for those of you keeping track, (and by the way, thanks to those of you who are keeping track!)- I’m at 39,186 words and officially 2 days ahead of where I wanted to be at this point. Hurrah!

The story moves along, the climactic moment is already written and just waiting for the other words to catch up and fill in around it. Hopefully they will. It’s an interesting experience writing something this long- I keep losing my sense of time within the story- I have to remind myself that things I wrote 2 weeks ago only happened four days ago in the story and 40 pages ago for the reader, so maybe talking about them again will be beating them over the head, I’m not sure. It will be odd to read it all in one go.

Anyway, only 10,814 words left, how crazy is that?

I’m still reading the Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf letters, it’s slow going when most of my reading time has turned into writing time. They’re still very enjoyable, it’s like eavesdropping on two extremely eloquent and intelligent people.

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HOORAY, HOORAY, HOORAY FOR ME!

25,0015 words down, 24,985 to go. What makes me even more pleased is the fact that what seemed to be a hinderance- that they wouldn’t leave on the stupid road trip- seems to be working out in a structural way. When I start tomorrow on what will be the second half of the novel, they’ll just be leaving on the trip. So the first half is the prep wherein character questions are set up, there’s some progression, and one character that I thought would be just secondary has made herself more central, and the second half will be what happens on the trip when those character questions are resolved and resolution happens. I hope anyway.

Regardless, tonight I celebrate. HOORAY FOR ME!

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Books 11/14/05

I finished A Moveable Feast, and am still in awe of Mr. Hemingway. He says so much with so little, and I envy that. His descriptions of the Fitzgeralds are so sad, as are his little mentions of the divide that came between he and his wife. I’ll definitly need to pick up more of his novels- what a fascinating life!

I’m 1077 words away from being halfway through my novel. Hopefully I’ll get that done tonight, and will be ahead of where I should be. We shall see.

Current Total: 108
Just Finished: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Currently Reading: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf

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Books 11/12/04 and other things

I’m officially past 20,000 words. Yeeha! The silly folks still haven’t left for their roadtrip, which is one of the main plot points, but hey, what can you do. There are pieces of it I really like and pieces I’m completely aware need more work, but at this point I’m trying really hard not to think about the quality of it in comparison to the things I’m reading. But for those of you who have been asking to see it, this is all you get. =)

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Eva changed the subject right then by asking where his suitcase was, and I was glad. It had felt like we were standing at the edge of a darkness, and I was relieved that we

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On writing

I’m officially past the 10,000 word mark on my novel! Woo hoo! This is the longest thing I’ve ever written, except for my senior thesis which isn’t quite the same. It still doesn’t have a title, and I’m not really sure where it’s going, but it does seem to be on its way there.

While complaining to a friend (see his blog at confessions123.blogspot.com) who is far more accomplished than I at this writing stuff, I mentioned that I can’t write description and my paragraphs are all really short. He suggested I read Hemmingway. Now I’ve never before picked up Hemingway because of the whole Spain/bullfighting thing, and I’m quite sorry to say that I’ve been missing out. Hemingway writes the way I wish I could. He gives a complete sense of place without seeming to describe things, he conveys the past without heavy exposition, and he uses dialogue like salt, sparingly and to taste, instead of the way I do, which is more like an overturned pepper shaker. I’m reading A Moveable Feast when I’m not writing, and am trying to be very conscious of what he’s doing in it. I’m noticing a lot, and hopefully I can implement even a few of the things that I’m picking up on. Once I finish it I’ll probably pull out Stephen King’s On Writing again; I loved it the first time through, and I’m sure there are things in it I can actually apply now that I’m doing some writing.