Secret Agent Casye says maybe it will be a comfortable black hole. Oh God, I hope that's true.
So when you're coming up against a deadline and you know it's impossible at some point you're going to want to say "forget it, I'll just copy-paste the whole damn thing and leave it alone." Actually, you'll want this at many points. And that's nice, but then what's the point of edits at all? You know there are all kinds of mistakes throughout the novel and you could probably even pick out the chapters that need the most work and hope the others are clean, but they won't be, not completely. That copy-paste thing, though, there's something to be said about that.
When working with a very complex equation in maths you can stare at it until your eyes bleed, but the answer won't come to you by looking at the whole problem, you have to break it down into smaller, workable parts. Use the order of operations, PEMDAS, and figure out the parenthesis first, then the exponents and so on and so forth until finally, you have a small equation that you can answer easily. In mechanics you do the same thing when approaching a new machine that you don't understand: you pick a small part and understand that, then work your way into the part connected to it, until you understand the rest.
The same idea of breaking down a problem into workable parts can be applied to writing as well. I prefer to type out everything again by hand, to effectively rewrite the novel, but when there's no time for that, copy-pasting will have to do. So instead of copy-pasting the entire novel and trying to comb through for mistakes, I copy a small portion, just a few paragraphs at a time, and work through those. That way I don't get overwhelmed by the bigness of everything and get too distracted from the finer details. I tend to miss things when I have too much to look at, so I limit the scope a little by zooming in on a particular set of words and fix them up, then move on to the next part attached to it. Copy-pasting saves me time, but I still manage to work through it all.
With that, I'm off to finish up my 4th chapter of the day. Hopefully I can still manage to pull off seven. Luckily, I have the day off tomorrow.
Tip #1: Break down the problem into something you can work with.
I think since you have the day off tomorrow you should shoot for ELEVEN CHAPTERS. WOOOOOOOOT. That is a big goal right there.
ReplyDeleteStaring at a math problem -sometimes- works! I've done it! ...it's kind of required for Chemistry sometimes, actually.
ReplyDelete"Here is this problem. Do it." If you don't know how to do it right away--you HAVE to stare at it until you see that ONE piece of information that might get you hooked on a formula. Add more formulas. Attempt to solve. If number is outrageous, add comment: "This is wrong." Get points anyways. Because there's nothing worse than leaving a 20 point problem blank. >.<
But regarding writing, I find that when it's hard to write something (as it is right now), my mind likes to wander. Forcing it to task is sometimes important, but letting it start to work on another relevant piece has also lead to some good material, especially when dialogue or random plot points are concerned.
And while I have not been threatened with the black hole...I am failing at being where I want to be right now, as well.
Jordyn, you are insane. I cannot write over 12,000 words in a single day. I think even asking 8,000 is a bit much.
ReplyDeleteMike, what you're saying with the formulas is exactly what I'm saying above, but you're presenting it as contrary. One of us must not be understanding the other.
Interesting. I've never thought about writing as being similar to maths before. Yay new ways to look at things.
ReplyDelete