Never Give Up

Never give up, because that it just the place and time that the tide will turn. Harriet Beacher Stowe.

Turns out Harriet was a smart woman.

As you may recall from my last post I was having a bit of a panic attack having decided that my second book was a disaster and that I might need to start from scratch. In my post I outlined the steps I took to ward off that panic and come at the problem from a more rational and effective position. http://dumpygrace.blogspot.ca/2013/10/do-not-panic.html

I mentioned that things were improving but I thought you might like to know how I fared.

I am thrilled to report that my efforts paid off. It took a good forty eight hours or so of focussed analysis to determine what was wrong and how to fix it. I had a few false starts but have settled on the fix that works.

1) Knowing that my villains were not in the least bit menacing, I did a complete 180 and decided to go with a more classic scenario. Very bad guy and his victimized wife. So far, so good. Both of them are much easier to bring to life and the story crackles because of it.

2) I was spending too much time on secondary characters and not enough with my protagonist, Signy Shepherd. Once I recognized that fact, it was a very easy fix.

And that's about it. Weird, huh? All that angst, and it came down to a couple of relatively easy solutions.

I'm now half way through my rough plot revisions and I THINK the story is moving along smoothly and the characters are popping from the page. I will have to write a couple of more action scenes and delete a couple of extraneous character driven scenes but all that is very doable.

Lesson Learned Harriet! The tide has turned and with any luck, it will be smooth sailing from now on.

                        CHEERS!

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/never_give_up.html#W46OWMIpcaESUB6Z.99

DO NOT PANIC!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was excited to begin the second draft of my second novel. I found myself a comfy spot, and cleared the decks for a couple of days of reading. I'd never read the entire thing in one go
and had no idea how it all worked as a whole.

                DO















Within a few hours I knew that the great plot device I thought would work so well had failed miserably.
The villains were boring and the story line was choppy and uninteresting.

                           
                 NOT













I spent a day in abject panic, unable to think. The pressure was intense. This book has been SOLD and is supposed to be good. How could I fix such an monumental disaster in time for the due date only four months away?

               PANIC!!!!











I am happy to report that I have found a way to tweak the villains and will not have to start from scratch as I originally feared. Indeed, I am quite pleased with the way they are turning out, and the story is much richer as a result. The new scenes that I must write are flying from my fingertips which usually means something good is happening.

Here are a few things I did to stave off panic and get back on track:

1. Do Not Panic. Realizing that panic would get me nowhere, I decided to take a breath and think rationally. Whatever happened it would not be the end of the world. Indeed, it might even be fun to meet this challenge head on and overcome it.
2. Breathe
3. Walk. I took several walks and allowed my mind to settle. Eventually, ideas began to flow again.
4. Dream. Every once in awhile if I have a problem, I will let my unconscious mind take over the problem and if I'm lucky, I'll wake in the morning with an innovative answer. That worked this time.
5. Friends. This is a huge one! Thanks to my wonderful writing friend, Phyllis Diller Stewart and my number one reader. Both offered words of support and tons of great ideas!
6. Don't be afraid to admit a mistake. There is no embarrassment in screwing up. I am a relatively new writer. This is only my second book. This kind of thing is bound to happen and it is how I respond to my mistakes that will make the difference. I choose to learn from my errors and improve because of them.
7. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. I think this point is particularly important, especially for a storyteller. As writers we are incapable of seeing things in a bland and boring way - if something happens, it happens big!  In my case - the villains didn't work and I built that into a massive problem that ruined everything about the book. But, that was a gross exaggeration. Set aside the urge to tell yourself dramatic stories and try to see the situation for what it is -  a problem that can be fixed..
8. Apply Bum Glue. There is only one way to fix the problem and that is to SIT DOWN and fix it. No distractions. 
9. Read something similar. This was very helpful. I picked up a novel by Thomas Perry. He writes a thriller series with Jane Whitefield as the main character, a woman who helps people disappear. I wanted to find out what about his plotting, etc made his story work. I was relieved and surprised to find that in actual fact his writing wasn't all that better than mine. His characters are pretty one dimensional, the villains are cartoonish, the dialogue has a LOT of 'let me tell you this bob' and there are plot holes wide enough to drive a truck through. And still...I kind of like Jane. This exercise gave me hope.
10. Remember that this is supposed to be fun.  As soon as the words began to flow again, and I realized that the story was back on track, the relief was thrilling. And the writing was fun again. 

                                                                        PHEW!