DAWN progress

[sleigh]

There are only three 'chapters' of A MAGIC OF DAWN remaining to be written, but they're big chapters and critical ones: the final crisis and resolution of the novel. But I haven't been working on them -- mostly because I'm not quite certain exactly how the events here have to play out. Instead, I've gone back and started on the revision pass through the novel -- cleaning up the mistakes, adding the missing foreshadowing for various events, correcting things in the revision notes I've been making as I went along, adding in another viewpoint character's sections as I go along, and generally getting the novel into submission shape.

I could be drafting the scenes that still need to be written, and maybe I should be. But I find myself balking when I start to work on them, which I've learned is generally a nudge from my subconscious that it's not happy yet and is still working on something. So to keep the forward momentum going while the subconscious takes care of its issues, I'm revising -- which I would have had to do anyway. When the subconscious lets me know what it wants, I'll go back to drafting.

The book's due in a little more than a month, after all. I still intend to meet that deadline...

So -- when you're writing, what are the signals your subconscious sends you when it's not happy?

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Same as you, I avoid writing the piece. I've learned that when I just can't write it, it usually means that it's not ready to be written. Sometimes it means that I'm not ready to write it -- for some external reason -- but usually it means that I don't yet know what I want to say.

It's not procrastination; it's part of the process.

B

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I know my mind is avoiding something when I feel an urge to clean the house.

I hate housecleaning. HATE IT. I will live with whole warrens of dustbunnies, step right over reams of papermonsters, and buy more underwear rather than deal with the pile of unwashed laundry. Dishes sit in the sink for days at a minimum, and occasionally long enough to spawn science experiments.

The less said about the bathroom, the better.

In short, I am a terrible housekeeper. But if there's something else I ought to be doing and I really don't want to do it, I will feel an urge to clean the house. For comparison: the only other time I feel that urge is when someone close to me dies.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Lately I'm stalling on everything that I need to revise. That's usually a sign that I need to think over the world-building some more, maybe make notes on what needs changing.

By the way, I'm about 2/3 of the way through A Magic of Twilight and really enjoying it. Love the politics!