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Saturday, November 3, 2007

MORE


by Marcia Mickelson

When I write, I don't write from start to finish. I usually do begin a novel with the first chapter. Then, I write the scenes that overtake my mind, the ones I can't stop thinking about. When I finish one of those scenes and I'm not sure what will come next, I write MORE in capital letters and know I have to come back to it later. When I've written all the good stuff, I then go back to work on the MORE scenes, sometimes even if I don't want to. I use the Find command in my word processor with the case sensitive setting to find the MORE scenes.

I find I write better if I can skip over scenes/plotlines I'm stuck on and work on what is fresh on my mind or what is aching to be written. I don't want to be stuck on something for a long time. Right now, I'm very close to finishing my work in progress, One On One. I have 13 MORE's to go back to work on. It might sound like a lot, but some MORE's only require a couple of paragraphs or a few lines of dialogue. There is only 1 or 2 MORE's that will require more than that. I feel like I'm so close.

This part of writing for me is so difficult because I've already written all the scenes I feel so passionately about. I have to go back and do that ones that are difficult or unexciting. But, they have to be done. My goal this week is to finish at least five MORE's.

2 comments:

Marsha Ward said...

You go, girl!

I do the same thing, using one of two "notes" to myself. They are either TK (which is short for a German phrase meaning "to come." It's printers' shorthand.), or REVISE. So easy to find the correct place and plug in a new scene or new facts that I didn't take the time before to research.

Tamra Norton said...

Fascinating! I'm a start-to-finish gal myself. Very interesting!