You might remember earlier in the month I posted about my March goals: four poems a day five days a week on my new historical verse novel. Here are my stats so far:
day 1: 4 poems
day 2: 4 poems
day 3: 4 poems
day 4: 2.5 poems
day 5: 2 poems
day 6: 4 poems
day 7: 3.5 poems
day 8: read through and notes
day 9: research
day 10: research
day 11: research
total: 48 poems overall
My day 8 read through showed me I couldn’t move forward until I did some more research. So I’ve set writing aside in order to better ground myself in some historical specifics. I’ll be honest: this has really frustrated me. I’ve felt like I’m shirking a goal. But as the all-wise Valerie Geary has reminded me, any work toward the draft is moving forward, even if there’s nothing immediately added to the manuscript.
Here’s to reading, thinking, and transforming facts into story.
Have your writing goals ever changed in order to benefit your story?
Even though you haven’t quite hit your goal, that’s still a lot of progress! And Valerie is right: research totally counts.
Caroline, this is the way it is with historical work. This is the way it MUST be. Your friend is very wise.
I love the time I spend researching, but often have to remind myself that I’m still making progress on those days! And then there are the days when research is actually procrastination. What a balancing act. In the end, research can only make your book better, fuller, richer. And I can’t wait to read it!
That is great advice. There is nothing more discouraging than feeling stalled, but research is not stalling. I do a lot of little bits of research as I’m writing (probably because I’m a pantser-writer). At this stage in my life I write a lot from my own experience, so my research isn’t anywhere near as in depth as would be required for a historical novel. BUT, there are always those little facts to look up, and pictures to remind me what things felt like and looked like. It can make the writing slow.
Great job, Caroline! I’m excited to hear more about this new novel.
Thanks for all the encouragement, friends!
any work toward the draft is moving forward
I’m working on my first novel and had to learn that lesson the hard way this week. After writing 25,000 words just fine as a “pantser”, I hit a wall and couldn’t move forward with the story. I was so discouraged, and ready to quit. I finally realized it’s time to do some more growing as a writer and to make myself write an outline. So although I’m not meeting my word count goals, I’m sitting here at Starbucks desperately trying to learn how to plot. Thanks for reminding me that that work is real progress. : )
Becky, thank you for sharing your experience. It validates mine. 🙂
Last week we talked about revision during our local SCBWI schmooze. I said something like writing isn’t efficient, but none of it is ever wasted. Even if “all” you learn from a writing session or even a whole draft is what you don’t want to say, that’s progress!
Of course, this is something I need to also say to myself…
Ha! All the time!
I don’t write historical, but I like the “real” parts of my stories to be as close to reality as possible so I do a ton of research, (including travel, as you well know!) when I have to. It’s so much easier to write the story creatively and figure out where you can bend the facts once you actually know the facts. Knowing the setting, the characters, the possibilities, ahead of time, is essential. So yeah, research totally counts.
Yep. I suspect it’s like this with any novel writing, but particularly with historicals. I’m working on one now that had lofty plans of being done last December… but I know that the research I’ve done is bringing it forward and making it better, so I don’t regret not meeting the goal.
Lately my goals have been more like this:
1. Sit down at the computer every morning at 6am.
2. Write something. Anything.
3. Trust God.
Except the third one is really first in priority!
All the best with your research! If you enjoy research as much as I do, you should be having a grand time now. 🙂
I do this all the time. Sometimes, while writing a draft, there are word-production periods. But then there’s a slowdown, and I’ve learned to trust the slowdown because it’s a warning that I’ve either made a wrong turn or am about to if I’m not careful. Either there’s research to do, or I have to take time to read through my notes and dig deeper. Churning out a certain word quota day after day doesn’t work for me. That often means I produce a draft slower than I’d like to, but it’s less of a mess than it would be otherwise, too.