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Welcome to My Official Web Page!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Longhand? What the Heck?!

I am revising. I LOVE revising!

Revising means the long slog of writing that dreaded first draft is over. This time my initial draft took almost seven months, small potatoes compared to my first book's 21 months. However, this time around I wrote over half the novel by hand.

What the heck? Why on earth would I torture myself? (I think I've developed carpal tunnel syndrome or early arthritis as a result, not to mention all the essays I graded at the same time. I'm a candidate for beatification--I plan to be the patron saint of writers.)

I started writing longhand when we went on vacation in March and didn't want to lose the momentum of the story. And then I discovered two things.


1. Writing the story and transferring it to Word allowed me to edit as I went.

2. I could write for hours at a time--no Internet distractions!


I moved scenes around, scrapped characters, and streamlined the plot along the way. You all know I'm a major outliner, but this novel is about the Byzantine Empire--not my specialty. I've been doing a ton of research, but some plot points came to light that forced some shuffling. But I didn't lose my groove because I was able to write and rearrange at the same time.

Genius!

Do I recommend this for everyone? Not unless you don't mind walking around with "The Claw" on your writing hand and carrying around a nerdy notebook with you at all times. (Mine had a nifty elephant on it). But it worked this time around!

And now I'm off to revise--woohoo!

Heads up! Kate Quinn, author of Mistress of Rome and Daughters of Rome will be joining me next Monday for a Q&A and a giveaway!