Saturday, October 23, 2010

Progress... and Stagnation

I've revised more than two chapters of my novel today... so I've been working hard. It's been a tough novel since I first wrote it right after I earned my doctorate, oh, those many years ago, and I've revised in nearly 20 times over since then.

I am now at a break-through point, though. The novel finally feels like it's working. Now I'm at about the 24,000-word level on the revision, with about 60,000 more to go to complete it (of course, then I'll have another revision to go, at least). It's tough, sloggy sort of work, and I keep finding I have to go back through a chapter more than once to make sure I've changed ALL of the verbs (verb tense is my one weakness, so I have to ensure no stupid shifts occur). Slowly but surely, though, I am getting it done. I'll work on it some more this evening, after I've put the kids to bed.

Ah, progress...

On the other hand, just trying to put a novel progress on my blog page has proven to be irritating in the extreme. I follow the directions, think I've done it exactly, but all I earn is error message after error message. It should be simple. It is, according to so many of my blogger pals. But for some reason, success escapes me.

Drat! Stagnation.

And why is that so frustrating? I can tell you why. When I'm managing to tackle Mount Everest, why is it that I can't seem to step over a mole hill? That's like being able to master a recipe like duck l'orange but fudge up buttered toast. And since I hate wasting time, I'm even more pissed off.

I'm going back to the novel. At least I feel like it's within my grasp.

5 comments:

  1. Sorry, hon. I don't know what to tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Depends on what you mean by "a novel progress" on your blog. Is that a different way of saying that you were tired of working on the story so you were looking for something else to do?

    What, in other words is a Novel Progress Report?

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's okay, Stephanie. Just whining.

    Walking Man, it's an apparatus that allows me to update my novel progress, up in the right corner of my blog. It really isn't an excuse for me to not work on the novel, but a way of showing all of you that I am working on something, even if I'm not posting. Only I can't seem to load it on the page.

    I don't have more time to spend on it, though, or on this comment. I need to get back to my novel. I have a long way to go, but I'm on a roll, and I want to see it come to fruition.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You must have gotten through your mound of papers to grade. Mazel Tov on both.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Try this link for your novel progress http://allfreelancewriting.com/wordcount-tracker/#
    Worked easily for me, I hope it works just the same for you.
    Glad to hear you’re having progression on you manuscript, keep it up.

    ReplyDelete