It seems arrogant to say this, but I like my writing.
With rereading book one of my trilogy, I find myself being struck by how much I enjoy the text. It's obviously rough in spots and there are holes and problems, but I see some of the things I have done with subtle cues and changes in direction of a conversation and I am pleased by it.
The trick, I suppose, is to learn to throw out stuff which doesn't serve the story even if I like the words.
Which actually brings me to a short diversion on the third NaNoWriMo novel that I wrote, Paragons.
2006 was by far my hardest NaNo year so far. 2008 was tough because of the loss of momentum and time around losing my job and then unexpectedly finding one again, but 2006 was really hard because I didn't like my story.
At the time I was running a Call of Cthulhu game set in an invented Cornish-settled village on the southern Oregon coast. I decided to use that milieu as a starting point for my story, and it kicked off quite well, but I made any number of mistakes in the telling. I was trying to make it too complicated with not enough preparation, and I was reusing an existing character in an inappropriate way, and what was supposed to be an apocalyptic horror novel featuring superhumans turned into unhappy people whinging about their jobs.
I have still not read Paragons. It looms, 50,000 words of nonsense mocking my talents.
Now as it happens I have read fragments of it. I read the first chapter for a film that was being made by some other NaNo participants that year, and I have glanced at a couple of other pages. The writing in those fragments seemed OK, quite as good as what I am reading now in book one, but I know that the totality is poor: a beautifully realised picture of a pile of poo is still a picture of a pile of poo.
This is one of those things where my best bet is to start anew. I have another way of telling the story that will work better so as and when I get through the trilogy I will work on that again. But Paragons as I wrote it in 2006 will probably stay untouched.
But that's five minutes.
Posted by Dunx at February 26, 2009 07:15 AM