Okay, I may be late with this post, but that always happens to me at major writing points: everything else becomes less important, all other tasks, chores, you name it, I single in on the one thing, and over the last 2 weeks it was finishing version 2 of my novel.
“This novel is more a canvas”—what do I mean by that? I work like a painter on a painting. I have the canvas in front of me, I did the foundation, fleshed out colours, shapes, and now I am working on the many details. I constantly add to it, not big chunks, but throughout the entire story. I never worked that way.
One sign are those XXXX dotting the pages, hinting at small or bigger issues and details yet to be worked in.
You may have noticed, I don't call it a draft, a draft implies huge changes, rewrites, this doesn't happen with my novels, it takes years to start one, but then everything becomes very organic and the changes I do one can not call a new draft—so I was told from many sides of credible authority. And I can live with that. I don't have less work, it just doesn't happen all on paper.
So I have the very 1st print of the (almost) entire novel what was my goal by end of August, the entire story, by far not perfect, to 80% I'd say. Almost because some chapters I cut short knowing I will extend them later (XXXX), but this way, by keeping writing I am not getting stuck during me being in the zone—the zone is the most important state of mind for me and my art. What happens in the zone, stays on paper. Except blatant mistakes of course...
No I am not counting words or letters (in Germany you do that over words), a page is a page, and layout differs in print anyway. My chosen layout for these pages are actually pretty dense, far away from a so-called norm-page, on the other hand it doesn't really matter because each print out will have another layout, so my eyes are not getting used to the layout and find more mistakes. Yes, that is a great tip, if you are writing in the editing phase and not doing that already!
A good moment to end this post.
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