Tag: writing | Amy C. Shaw

Feeling Stuck, Or: I Hate Rewriting

March 18, 2013 • 3 Comments

Writing is fun. Rewriting is not.

Editing, which is fine-tuning what you have, can be OK. But that’s not where I am not yet. Rewriting is changing things within your story that you think may have not been working too well. And it really, really stinks. And that’s exactly where I am now.

November 2011 I decided to write a short story. It turned into a novella. Then I turned it into a novel, the first in a series, to combine it with two other story ideas I had. I was pretty happy with my first draft of the novel version and moved on to the next story, book two of the series. I finished it and realized even though it wasn’t perfect, it was a lot better than the previous. Then I was attempting to write the third, but I felt really stuck. I didn’t know how to move forward at all. The second story laid some good groundwork, but I felt there needed to be more from the first book. And I knew there were some other things there that needed to be changed. So I decided to go back and rewrite the first book. That’s what I’ve been attempting to do for the past few weeks now.

And already I feel so completely stuck.

I have an idea of where I want to go with it, but I don’t have all the plot points detailed out like I did when I decided to expand the novella to a novel (I think it helped that I was reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell at the time, which by the way, I found to be extremely helpful and would recommend). So I suppose I ought to sit down and do that first, and then go from there. I have just spent the past two weeks or so feeling sort of scatterbrained, and everyday I do at least one thing that feels like a total fail. For example, several days ago the first thing I did when I got out of bed was walk right into a door. And then just a day or two later, I hit a curb on a curve really hard and it killed my tire. Needless to say, I have not been in tip-top shape lately. I also feel like I am laboring over my current read, Unbroken. It is a fantastic story, but it is a really hard read that gives you a very detailed look at life inside Japanese POW camps during WWII. It’s wearing and I’m ready for it to be over, as if I was living it. But the good news is, I have finally reached the point where the war is over, so hopefully it only gets better from there.

I may also go back to the third story, plot it out, then work on writing it before I go back to the first book. But sigh… I don’t know. Mostly, I think I may need a break from this particular universe. I feel bad ever abandoning a story I have been working on so much, and I feel like I need to see it through to the end, otherwise it will end up like the 50 million (OK, closer to just 50) partial stories I have written. But I have a goal I really want to see through, so I think I will come back before too long. I just need to be excited about it again.

Any other writers suffer from the rut of rewriting? What do you do? Any advice, even from non-writers, is appreciated!

Nothing I Write…

February 21, 2013 • 0 Comments

Embarrassed About Accomplishment?

February 18, 2013 • 5 Comments

It’s amazing to me how we, as people, generally tend to be. We pride ourselves as experts in world politics, parenting, fashion, you name it, but when we receive a compliment or an accolade, most of us feel suddenly humbled or even downright shy.

“It wasn’t much, really.”

“I don’t really deserve this.”

“Well, it wasn’t that hard.”

What’s also difficult is when you achieve a personal accomplishment, and you think to yourself: This is so awesome! I want someone to know! Not so that they’ll be impressed… I mean it’s not the most awesome thing ever… but I just want someone besides me to know. But I don’t want to seem like I’m proud or bragging…

So here is…

The other day, after three and a half months, I basically completed a 76,000+ word novel. This was after spending a year writing a 67,000+ word novel. That was after spending ten years writing a 46,000+ word novel. Do you understand the strides I’m making here?

But again, I don’t want to be braggy (I honestly don’t), so this is the part where I downplay everything.

It’s not like it’s Pulitzer winning material or the next Harry Potter. All three of my stories need a TON of work before I even think about self-publishing or sending it off to someone to publish.

I’m trying to balance all these thoughts. It’s good that I realize I haven’t mastered the craft of writing yet and I still have A LOT to learn. It’s good that I recognize that the first draft is no where near the last. And it’s good that I’m not already promoting my young adult dystopia series with a Facebook page as I send this off to the fastest self-publishing company out there. (Which would be dumb for more many reasons, but especially since there are actually still some parts that I have highlighted yellow in Word because I plan to change them but haven’t yet, but have otherwise finished the story.)

But I don’t have to be embarrassed or afraid to say, “Hey, I’m super excited because I wrote over 75,000 words in less than four months and I have never, ever, ever done that before.”

When I posted this on Instagram the other day I was excited to surpass the last novel. I didn’t know yet that I was going to make it up to 76,000.

By the way, this did not come easily. When I started this novel in November (since – full disclosure – there were some bits and pieces of it that had been written out before and I had a lot better grasp on this particular story line than I did for the previous novel) I had a goal to finish both it and the next one in my series by the end of 2013. I put a lot of time into writing these last three and a half months. I know the next book will not be quite as fast, but I do hope I can get it done by the end of the year. And when I am ready to revise all these stories, I will certainly be more focused on the quality than the quantity. But before I could revise it to perfection (or as close to it as I can get), I had to write something. And lately, I’ve gotten much further along in writing something than I would have believed four years ago.

What are you hoping to accomplish, or have you accomplished, that excites you but also makes you feel a little sheepish?

Start.

February 14, 2013 • 3 Comments

I suppose this is the part where I introduce myself. So… my name is Amy, I’m 26 years old, and I blogged consistently for years. Then slowly, after years of sharing my life online, I just got tired of it. I was starting to focus more on my fiction. I felt my blog had no real direction. Well, it did, I suppose… it was sharing my weekend with my friends. But I was tired of that and I knew that if I was going to blog anymore, it needed to be different. It needed to have a direction and be something that people I don’t know would find interesting.

But the thought of focusing on one thing and the thought of total strangers reading my stuff online was terrifying. Sure, I wanted to be a published author one day, but I wouldn’t hear most of the criticism, and it wouldn’t be as immediate and personal as a negative comment on a blog. (Actually, it would be just as personal, because if I do ever get published, I can guarantee that book will be like my baby… a true labor of love.)

February 7, I attended a great event called Start Night, thrown by Jon Acuff. He’s pretty much been my hero since I read his book Quitter. I am not even 100% certain how I found out about the book. I knew him from the few times I had visited his Stuff Christians Like blog, and then he started making appearances on a radio show I listen to. I assume I heard him on the radio that day, checked out his blog, and then on the side of the page saw something about his new book Quitter, which had the tagline: “Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job.” Needless to say, this intrigued me. I downloaded it to my Nook and started reading it right away even though I had been reading Northanger Abbey. And it changed my thinking; it changed me.

When I saw the announcement for Start night, I knew I had to go. I got my ticket the first day. It felt a little risky. I, the introvert, would be going solo. I would have to parallel park in the downtown area. I would probably be sleep deprived the next day. And it was also the due date of my friend’s baby. I had no way of knowing he would be born a month early. I just hoped it would work out. And it did.

The theme of the night, and of the upcoming book, was this idea of leaving behind the path of an average life and getting on the path to awesome.

Inside the theatre… the switch from average to awesome.

I don’t think it sounds cool when I explain it, but it does when Jon Acuff does. Anyhow… and of course there was the idea of STARTING, to not put your dreams on hold any longer. Yes, keep your day job for now. Yes, be aware of your present circumstances and what you are capable of in terms of commitments and finances and what is important now. But dream of what’s ahead. Take every small baby step you can towards your dream and watch it grow. And don’t listen to the negative voices inside you that say you can’t do it, or the myth that you’ll be ready one day but you aren’t now. You’ll never really be ready. You have to start and go through an awkward, fumbling beginning and learning stage before you can become the master of your craft that you want to be. And not only is that OK, that’s what everyone who lives an awesome life goes through.

Jon Acuff gave a great presentation of the material and I felt encouraged afterward. I got to leave with an advanced release copy of the book, which I am reading through now. Do yourself a favor and pre-order it.

All this to say, this blog is how I am STARTING, at least with my public writing. I have been writing pretty religiously for a little over a year now, and it’s paid off. Since November 2011 I have basically written 1 novel and I am almost finished with another one. That is more than I accomplished in my previous 15+ years of writing (but don’t get me wrong… I needed those years to start a lot of bad stories, ha).

But believe it or not, this blog is not all about my pursuit of writing. I think that would actually be quite boring to read about unless I posted my writing, which I am not doing quite yet. I do want to talk about stories however, whether they be in TV, movie, or book format. I love stories in all mediums. I majored in TV Production in college because I thought I might want to tell stories that way. I still hope to one day do a little something with film. But right now, I want to write, and write, and rewrite, until I get that first novel bound with my name on the cover. But any exercise in writing and exploring story telling is beneficial I believe. So I will be discussing everything from Jo in Little Women (book and movie form) to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to movie adaptations of Jane Austen’s stories to The Hunger Games… and everything else in between.

I still don’t know exactly how this blog is going to look as it progresses. I have sat on this idea for about a year. But it’s time to START and find out. Thanks for reading this long (I promise not all posts will be this long). And thanks for your willingness to go through the growing pains with me.

Tell me, what do you want to START? What’s your dream?

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