Dr. Makwa Speaks

Mmmm, fresh Moleskine.

Notes on the Novel: Page 60

There are more characters that need to be introduced but the end of July 3rd is on the horizon. They will have to wait for the 4th. Am I being too mean toward these characters? Is there something about them that people will find empathetic, or even realistic? There’s a gay character who is also an alcohol/drug abuser, so which aspect of the depiction will inevitably be more offensive? Are the characters acting out their stereotypes a little too much? Is there a way to make the aunt less evil? Why are they always smoking? And here is the novel imitating real life.

Notes From the Novel: Page 161

Move please. For the love of everything holy please keep moving. The end is in sight, the characters are here, just keep moving, please, novel. Okay, I’m being overdramatic about the fight it’s putting up at the moment. It just doesn’t want to jump from Part II to III, which might indicate that I didn’t truly end Part II. The right ending moment is in there, but it feels buried in a scene that doesn’t register as much as the other ones. So now I’m encountering some resistance, because I’m unsure if the characters have emotionally absorbed what happened in the previous sections, because they should have. These are characters who have been taught not to show emotion—in their eyes it’s a weakness. They have emotions, but they only let them through in unguarded moments. But am I catching those moments or losing them in the writing? This is why it’s important to read through before I sit down to the day’s writing. 

Notes From the Novel: Page 200

I’d like to wrap this up soon so I can start typing it. Once it has been typed, I’ll use Scrivener to convert it into an ebook and make notes on the iPad. It feels good because at the 200-mark, everyone’s in outright conflict with the narrator, and things are happening that I find funny but not silly. However, I suspect the dialogue is a little soapy and obvious, and some of the actions are repetitive. It’s easy to write piles of pages when you shut off the inner critic, but the critic only goes into hibernation and usually wakes up pissed off. What’s difficult is realizing the limitations of your writing upon reading it and sensing something is missing. 

Nanowrimo toolkit. Small notebook for ideas. Big notebook for drafting. Laptop for word processing and formatting (Word and Scrivener). iPad for reviewing without editing in iBooks (also good for marking line edits later). Lucky pens.