Current mood:	content
Current music:	Steve Miller Band--Greatest Hits 1974-78

Thoughts about writing...
Not too long ago someone asked how many pages I write a day, and do I write everyday?

Here's what I told them: I don't measure what I write in pages. Not for first or second draft, anyway. I do try to keep track of my word count, and I do try to get down somewhere between 2K and 5K everyday. Yes, everyday. (This does not mean I always succeed--sometimes life gets in the way and things come up that pull me away from my desk.) The key word is "try".

I don't always succeed, and sometimes, even when I do get those 2-5K words, I'll edit them to death so only about half remain. First draft for me is just to get the thoughts down on paper. In first draft mode, I don't pay much attention to spelling, grammar or punctuation--all I'm after is to capture the idea, to scoop it out of my head and spread it out before me. (Pretty picture, huh?)

Once the contents are exposed, albeit with many flaws, then do I can pick away at the first draft. Poof to most of the adverbs and all the exclamation points (perhaps with the rare exception of one or two); most verbs that can be substituted for the word 'said' are exchanged for the 'said verbs' (Why? Because readers' eyes glide right over 'said' and 'say', but they get snagged on 'murmured' and 'scream'. Only occasionally will I use a word like 'whispered', but only when I'm unable to "show" my character whispering.); and cliches, ugh--if I can't come up with new, unused substitutes, out they go.

After dealing with the adverbs, the 'said' verbs and the cliches, then I read (usually out loud) the draft through for flow. If it sounds choppy, I know I need to lengthen my sentences. If I have a sentence that's more than two or three lines long, I know I may have to shorten it. I listen carefully to my words as I read them, asking myself: Is each word the strongest it can be? Am I saying what I mean to say?

The thesaurus is a tool that should never be a crutch. I keep mine in the bottom drawer of my desk, so should I need it, I really have to dig for it. Why? Because more often than not, the word I thought of first is the right word, exactly the word I need; I've just used it in the wrong way. In this case, 'sentence sculpting' remedies the situation (and I thank my soul-sis, Susannah, for that phrase).

The dictionary, though, is kept right beside me within arm's reach. That's the hardcover Merriam Webster Collegiate version because it's easy to handle. Webster's Unabridged lives on the bookshelf, heavy, unweildy and huge, because there are times when I need a good pipe wrench and the trusty monkey wrench just won't deliver the goods.

In the second draft, I check for grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes. The 'grammar/spell checker' in MSWord and its cousin, MSWORKS, doesn't do all that great a job. Sure, it can catch a typo (if the typo isn't an actual word), and it catches repeat words, but that's about all it's good for, IMHO. The best grammar/spell checker is your eyes and brain--or someone else's eyes and brain.

Which is what I use at the end of my second draft: someone else's eyes and brain. No one except me ever sees my first drafts. Why? Because it would be difficult reading, and no one else knows what I'm trying to say. And because my first readers are people I respect, people who are brutally honest, I wouldn't want them to think I'm any crazier than they already do. First drafts aren't meant to be pretty. Good thing. Mine are horrendous.

Second drafts are like children with brightly washed faces. Yes, I send them out for others to read, but I also keep in mind that they're not perfect. Their teeth may need to be straightened, or I might have forgotten to scrub behind their ears. My first readers look them over and send them back to me with suggestions on how to make them more presentable. Do I listen to what they have to say?

Yes, even though I don't always carry through on every suggestion. It's not that I don't need the advice, I do, and I always appreciate it...sometimes, however, a suggestion will help me think of something else I can do to enrich my writing. Something I probably wouldn't have thought of if I hadn't been given the suggestion in the first place.

Third draft, for me, requires that I make sure my formatting is as perfect as I can make it. For this, I use the 'All Characters' command. That's the only way I've found to be sure I have used hard returns at the ends of paragraphs, and no tabbed indents. 'Find' and 'Replace' in the Edit commands are handy for deleting any 'white space' (extra spaces after punctuation marks). It's also a handy tool for double-checking proper names for consistency throughout the text.

By the end of the third draft, my work is as close to marketability as I can come.

This process isn't how every writer writes; it's just how I do it. Not that I'm an expert on the subject, I'm just someone who tries to write everyday. There are about a million things I haven't mentioned here involving style, but that's such a personal thing, anyway. If you've developed your own writing voice, you have found your style.

Some writers write a hundred or so words a day. Or a thousand words a week. They may not need to go through all the rigorous backflips of editing and re-editing of more prolific writers. In the end, for the prolific and the not-so-prolific, it all boils down to one thing: quality over quantity.

***

Today, I've resumed my research on 18th Century New England sailing vessels, and Trinidad, specifically Port of Spain in 1742. This is part of the work I'm doing for my novel HALLOW HOUSE. I've managed to type 3K more words on it today. So far, so good; it's coming together well.

I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. Think I caught a head cold, ugh, but the spearmint tea seems to be helping. Glad I put up the leaves last fall. Yep, I grow my own .

Cool news: The anthologies CHIMERAWORLD #1 and BE MINE have been released and are available to order from Cyber-Pulp Books.

Stay warm and cozy with a good book!
~T. M. Gray