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A “Quick” Backstory For My Novel, Part 2

Here’s the continuation of my novel’s backstory. ‘Backstory’ in the sense of how, in real life, my novel came to be. Part 1 of the story is here. I left off at where I’d written my first (typed) draft with the novel writing group.

September 2020: I was finished my first (typed) complete draft. It was around 50k words, and I was pretty excited because I’d never before written anywhere near as much in a single project.

I had a ton of momentum going but nothing left to write because I’d reached the end! Also, the story was sharpening in its details and becoming more real to me.

In preparation for working with a developmental editor, I immediately went back and did some cleanup. My writing was in many different files and needed stitching together. (Interestingly, I’m in a similar phase now, in July 2022, on a later draft. I guess I just like writing in a ton of different files.)

October 2020: I worked with a developmental editor to analyze the story structure, map out all the scenes, ponder their purpose, and strengthen them. This was hugely helpful, and I had clear next steps. My editor’s recommendation was to go about making the rewrites, methodically, starting with Act I.

I’m not sure how long I spent, but I made spreadsheets and identified changes. I came up with a plan where I’d make multiple passes through the story, each time focusing on a different aspect. Such as the character arcs, world-building, and pacing.

February-April 2021: I signed up with my novel-writing group again for the second draft. I felt ready. The jumble of scenes had clicked into place within well-defined, coherent sequences that built to their own mini climaxes.

The sequences finally clarified, for the first time, how these mysterious things called plotting and pacing worked.

For the second draft, I was expected to post chapters in the writing group for review, and provide feedback to other writers. I wasn’t sure how this was going to fit with my multi-pass approach, where I only wanted feedback on the specific story-aspect I was working on. I got bogged down in trying to fit the structure of the class with how I seemed to work, intuitively. 

I ended up deviating from my plan and strengthening the first few chapters in more ways than I’d intended. 

Overall, the effect was that I didn’t come anywhere close to finishing my draft in the prescribed time, but the first chapters became a lot stronger. And my fellow-writers seemed to resonate with some of the characters, which felt pretty nice. No one had met my characters except me, till then.

May – November 2021: I had a more polished draft of a few of the ‘sequences’ that made up my novel, and many more to go. I had a much better sense of how to structure a sequence and make it exciting (to me, anyway). 

But I started getting stuck again, and I wasn’t sure why. For the next sequence, I needed a lot more clarity on my fictional world. But I’d been planning to do a full pass on character arcs before worrying about worldbuilding questions. I kept struggling through and tried to keep drafting so I could be done with this pass. 

I was constantly torn about what aspect of the project to work on. There were questions about the worldbuilding that were really bugging me and pulling at my attention. But I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to worry about that until I fixed what I was currently working on. Which I couldn’t – not confidently, anyway, because it depended on a world building question. After going in circles on this for a while, my momentum fizzled out, and I stopped working on the novel for nearly five months.

To be continued.

Line Drawings of Houseplants

Polishing up my drawings from the 10 Day Challenge!

Click on each image to see it zoomed in!

As I’ve mentioned, in May I drew (and YouTubed) a houseplant every day for 10 days! It’s been cool looking at the pile of art I made in a relatively short time. Recently, I spent some time polishing and designing the pictures into an arrangement I found pleasing. Now, I’m working on framing and hanging them on my walls.

I’ve collected the designed versions into an art book. If you’d like a copy (which you can use for any non-commercial purpose), you can get it for free here:

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Research Day 5: IPCC Report

The last of the skims! I’m excited to check this stage of the reading project off my (alarmingly engorged) to-do list.

I just finished skimming WORKING GROUP III CONTRIBUTION
TO THE IPCC SIXTH ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR6). I read the Summary for Policy Makers, and found a few areas where I may want more detail. For those areas I’ll dip into the full document.

Now for the Q&A.

  1. What is the document, in simple terms?
    • It gives a big picture overview of the mitigation measures needed and global trends.
    • Here’s what the authors say: “The Working Group III (WG III) contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) assesses literature on the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change.”
  2. When is it from?
    • Finalized in April 2022.
  3. What type of language does it use – legalese, engineering-speak, or layman-friendly?
    • It didn’t use any specialized language, except for some climate change & policy terms that it defined within the document. So I’d say layman-friendly, if a little dense.
  4. What am I looking for in this document?
    • This document introduced me to the idea of enabling conditions:
    • “Literature explores how development choices and the establishment of enabling conditions for action and support influence the feasibility and the cost of limiting emissions.”
    • So I’m curious about how we can contribute to these enabling conditions.
  5. How many (readable) pages is it, excluding appendices and references?
    • 63 pages.
  6. What cited resources do I want to add to my TBR (‘to be read’)?
    • None so far.

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Yay! Now I have an overview of what I’m covering, so the next stage of reading feels much more manageable.

Research Day 4: Skimming the IEA Methane Report

On Memorial Day weekend, I’m diving back into sustainability research after a long art interlude.

Here in my skim of the report from the International Energy Agency titled Curtailing Methane Emissions from Fossil Fuel Operations.

Starting with my skimming questions:

  1. What is the document, in simple terms?
    • It’s an overview of methane-mitigation measures we could take to meet the goals of COP26. It was created by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
    • Here is what they say about it: “The aim of this report is to present a non-prescriptive, high-level identification of the different measures and approaches that could deliver a 75% reduction in methane emissions from fossil fuel operations by 2030. We consider a range of action that includes policy and regulation, voluntary industry initiatives, as well as tools to improve the quality and availability of information about methane emissions.”
  2. When is it from? October 2021.
  3. What type of language does it use – legalese, engineering-speak, or layman-friendly?
    • Simple, engineering-inflected language.
    • Honestly, I liked this report a lot. I feel like they’re talking to me. Mostly because it’s simple, takes a big picture approach, and focuses on possibilities.
  4. What am I looking for in this document?
    • An overview of ways to get involved, in whatever capacity. With, maybe, an eye toward research and development (R&D) work since that’s my particular interest.
  5. How many (readable) pages is it, excluding appendices and references? 46.
  6. What cited resources do I want to add to my TBR (‘to be read’)?

* * *

There we go! Another installment of the research quest. And only one more report to skim, followed by a round of deep dives.

And then I can settle into the book-portion of the project (items 6 to 9 on the list), which hopefully should be more cozy and involve tea and rocking chairs.