I have more documents on my first WIP than I care to admit. I'd venture to guess I have around seven, at least. They all contain different information as well as the same information repeating itself. Information I am deathly afraid of losing. Why? A years worth of headaches are wrapped into those documents. First drafts and second drafts and sixth drafts. Ideas and notes and brain storms are within those docs. Plus, I have three full notebooks of notes as well.
And through all of that information and research and time and sweat, I wonder–did I use it all? Is it all in there? Inside the novel, tucked away in its pages and in its story? I don't know if it is. I did so much in regard to my first book that it completely overwhelmed me. It was too much information. Too many ideas and I couldn't shut it down. So really–there is NO WAY that all of those painstaking hours of doc filling and note taking made it into the final draft. Or did it?
As I have begun my second book in the series, a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders. I know where this story is going. I know my characters now, the scenes, the setting–I know my story. In the beginning, I was still fumbling through. Ideas striking all the time, waking me up in the night. Blocks that took forever for me to break through. I didn't know where I was going, or what I was doing in the first draft. I think–I hope–I do now.
So although, every idea I had did not find a place in my final copy, all of those ideas found a place in the overall feel of the story–in the overall drive and forward motion of the story. That brain storming crazed state of mind pushed me to finish my book. All those documents and filled notebooks found their place.
This entry was posted on July 19, 2011 by Laney. It was filed under Publishing, Thoughts, Writing and was tagged with Brain Storm, goal accomplishment, Inspiration, laney mcmann, novel writing, Thoughts, WIP, Writing process.
Absolutely not;) Granted, #2 has already proven itself to be much more organized. I think it's an experience thing. For me anyway.