Bodacious Writing and Thoughts
It’s a Glorious Writing Day!
Yes, I’m working hard on Bodacious Creed today. So why am I here blogging? I’ll let you in on my writing process. Most writers enjoy doing that, and I for one enjoy reading about what other writers do. We’re all a little different, and we can all learn from each other.
When I sit down to write, especially fiction, I usually need to take about ten minutes to journal. Just write about my week, my day, get my current musings about life digitized and out of my head. This does two major things. It warms me up to write by getting words flowing, and it gets my everyday thoughts down so that I don’t have to carry those around when I want to focus on a book, story, or article.
If I’m about to write a scene, I’ll take notes on that scene then write it. This actually speeds up writing said scene because I’ve planned it out. I know my character’s motivations, I know the surprises, and I don’t have to figure them out while I’m writing the actual prose.
I’ve written one scene today and bam! The idea to share this process with the world hit me, so I’m quickly typing out this blog as a new wave of journaling, only in the public sphere. Then, I’m going to outline the next scene (which is a big one!) and pound that out. I really want to get 5,500 words done today so that I can get the book up to 80K already, but I don’t know if I’ll make it. Hey, shoot for the stars and you’re bound to reach the moon.
My DVD Musings
This novel of mine, Bodacious Creed: A Steampunk Zombie Western, is turning out to be much longer than I expected, which is part of the reason that I anticipate I’ll be able to publish it in December 2016 and not sooner, as I’d hoped. There’s this one scene I have in my head that I thought would fall about 20,000 words into the book, and at 76,500 words (I wrote nearly 1,000 today, for those doing the math), I haven’t written the scene yet! That’s actually the scene I plan to write now. This is going to be fun.
When I revise the book, I just might end up cutting a lot of scenes. I’m of the mind, writing Bodacious Creed, that I want to get everything in the story. And that might work once I finish the book. I may read back over it and say, “Yeah, all (or most) of these scenes should stay in the book. It makes it a longer read but the flow is good.”
If I do remove scenes though, I’ve got a pretty good idea: to share them with my audience in some way, like deleted scenes on a DVD. I enjoy those, and I often think, “I can see why the director cut that scene, but I’m glad got to watch it.” They often give insight into a story and answer viewer questions, like “Where did middle-class Ferris Bueller get the money to fund his day off?” Answer: watch the deleted scenes. (Actually, it might just be in the original script for that movie, but you can find the answer online. You get the idea.)
How will I share my deleted scenes? They won’t go in the book itself. Perhaps I’ll share them on my mailing list. I could dedicate a section of my site to the deleted scenes, in order, and add a new one every week, then let people who read the blog know. Of course, there will be a big spoiler warning: read these scenes only after you’ve read Bodacious Creed!
(Yes, I had fun casting four of the main characters for the DVD image. That took me longer to make than I anticipated, so I really need to get to my next scene!)
Writers Write!
To me, that is, s'il vous plait.
If you’re a writer or an avid consumer of fiction, let me know what you think! I’m especially interested in knowing what people think about the deleted scenes idea. If you’re a writer, is this something you’d want to try? How would you share such scenes from one of your books? Please comment below!
