Monday, July 5, 2010

Toasting the Brain Cells

It's incredibly hot again, and I spent much of the day just keeping cool. I read, did some critiques, and noted some ideas.

The one really good thing I did today, though, was to change my approach to Test of Freedom. I've got notes, I've got ideas, I've got lots of big picture stuff. But what I need right now, I think is blinders. (Or perhaps the photographer's lollipop I talked about in April.)

Let the big picture stuff sit in the back of my head. Right now, think of this almost like a serial. One chapter at a time: Look at the first chapter and treat it like it's the only thing the reader will read. Ask myself "What does the reader need right now?" By taking this approach, I've already identified what is missing from the first two pages.

I'm going to try to take a chapter a day - write the changes in one chapter, and then maybe read and make notes on the next. The rest of the time, I'll be reading and working on other projects.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Camille - I like your strategy of focusing on one chapter at a time. It's sometimes so daunting to consider a whole book that I find it much more productive to do it one step at a time. Stay cool!

rebel_of_nowhere said...

Far too hot to write anything today; it seems to be one of those afternoons just meant to be procrastinated away.

The Daring Novelist said...

Google's weird on comments again - I tried to approve your above comments earlier and they just vanished from the face of the earth. And now they're back!

Anyway, the heat continues. Feh. But today and tomorrow I'm at the day job, and then we're supposed to get a break.