Mid-November 2022 - an excuse to show off my book
Mid-November 2022 - an excuse to show off my book
Hi Everyone,
I stumbled upon this quote out of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird (a book about writing):
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, god help us, healthy.
I think this is very fair advice—but… I only wish my drafting process went this smoothly. I always think I’ve set myself up properly for the next thing I plan on writing, I write a detailed out line, character sketches and so on. Then I sit down to actually write the story and everything goes out the window. The beautiful shiny novel I pictured fails to materialize. Instead, I end up scrambling to create something that might, eventually (with a serious amount of fixing), be a ‘down draft.’
The thing is, I’ve experienced this every time I sit down to write a book. Every time. And every time, I get past this into the ‘up drafts’.
I’m now deep into my NaNoWriMo book. I’m on track to finish a few days before the end of the month. My shiny story is no more, instead it has morphed into something else. Right now, I need to ignore what the story is at this moment and just keep writing. Which makes me think of this (and yep, it get’s a little annoying):
Next a book recommendation…
Since all I’ve been doing the last little while is writing, I thought I’d take this opportunity to recommend Day 115 on an Alien World (and it’s on sale for 99 cents right now).
I wrote this novel after reading The Martian and realizing I had a rough draft of something very similar sitting in my drawer. So I changed things up, added a saboteur and a lot more people—and moved the entire thing off Mars. What I ended up with is a hard scifi thriller full of action and adventure.
I hope everyone has a great November.
Cheers,
Jeannette
My Books:
Encoded Orbits
Fractured Orbits - direct or from the shops
The Alien Algorithm - direct or from the shops
Settler Chronicles
Day 115 on an Alien World - direct or from the shops
Far Side of the Moon - direct or from the shops
Abandoned Ships, Hijacked Minds - direct or from the shops
The Alien Artifact - direct or from the shops
And if you aren’t already a subscriber, what’s stopping you (especially if you have read this far)?