Foggy
My Monday view: Foggy
Literally. It's foggy outside.
It's also a little foggy inside my head, too, because I'm still enjoying my first sips of coffee. Some new blend my live-in handyman bought. It's very good. But as the caffeine takes hold and my brain wakes up and joins me, the fog will gradually lift and the sun will return.
So with all this fog going on, I thought I'd chat about foggy writing.
Yesterday I had to go back to look for something in the first part of my manuscript. Some items had been placed in a box, and I needed to know what they were. Now - speaking of fog - you'd think I could remember this. But I wrote that bit before the holidays fried my last nerve.
If I kept an ongoing log, like I know some organized writers do, or started with a full outline, like some other organized writers, I could've looked it up. But that's way too easy.
So I scrolled back through the pages to the general area and found it. Wrote the items down on a bright pink stickie and slapped it on my desk right in front of the keyboard. I probably won't need it again, but if I do, I've got that sucker.
I digress. It's the fog.
But while I was a hundred or so pages in the past, I noticed a lot of foggy writing - assorted pronouns, wimpy verbs, adverbs trying to corrupt my real message. It was a muddled mess.
I knew these things were there because I put them there. I just didn't realize how much work I would have to do on second draft. If I can't think of the right word as I'm writing, I replace it with a pronoun that will do. Same with verbs. I move along.
But in that particular passage, the fog was darn thick and traffic was creeping along, flashers blinking.
My little foray back in time gave me a good heads-up on what I have in store next month. I just hope it's not so foggy I can't tell what I really meant.
Literally. It's foggy outside.
It's also a little foggy inside my head, too, because I'm still enjoying my first sips of coffee. Some new blend my live-in handyman bought. It's very good. But as the caffeine takes hold and my brain wakes up and joins me, the fog will gradually lift and the sun will return.
So with all this fog going on, I thought I'd chat about foggy writing.
Yesterday I had to go back to look for something in the first part of my manuscript. Some items had been placed in a box, and I needed to know what they were. Now - speaking of fog - you'd think I could remember this. But I wrote that bit before the holidays fried my last nerve.
If I kept an ongoing log, like I know some organized writers do, or started with a full outline, like some other organized writers, I could've looked it up. But that's way too easy.
So I scrolled back through the pages to the general area and found it. Wrote the items down on a bright pink stickie and slapped it on my desk right in front of the keyboard. I probably won't need it again, but if I do, I've got that sucker.
I digress. It's the fog.
But while I was a hundred or so pages in the past, I noticed a lot of foggy writing - assorted pronouns, wimpy verbs, adverbs trying to corrupt my real message. It was a muddled mess.
I knew these things were there because I put them there. I just didn't realize how much work I would have to do on second draft. If I can't think of the right word as I'm writing, I replace it with a pronoun that will do. Same with verbs. I move along.
But in that particular passage, the fog was darn thick and traffic was creeping along, flashers blinking.
My little foray back in time gave me a good heads-up on what I have in store next month. I just hope it's not so foggy I can't tell what I really meant.
Comments
Great and helpful post.
Helen
Straight From Hel
Not that's fog.
Best Wishes Galen.
Imagineering Fiction Blog
Elspeth
Then I know areas that need work later. Sometimes my critique partners get to choose which word works best.
Galen---my goodness. I can't remember what or why I wrote something eleven weeks before!
Fun read and hopefully the coffee helped your fog. :)
I have used stickies myself. Purple. But sometimes they unstick and fall away behind the table.
Then days later when I'm cleaning *shamefaced that it's days later* I'll find it with, for example, one word such as "synergy".
Still trying to remember why.
Helen - Ooh, I like that. Fun new roads to travel.
Galen - Wow. I'm sure I wouldn't remember either.
Elspeth - Any idea where we could find an outfit to make us look like the Michelin Man or the Pillsbury Dough Boy?
Kathy - I'll do that on subsequent drafts, but from the first to the second almost all of it needs work.
Kimberly - Thanks. And the coffee did help.
Mason - Sometimes I find that wall, too.
Marisa - I can hardly wait for that day!
Purple works, too :)
Conda - I keep hoping that for my writing, too.
I use the grocery list pads to jot things down. They're harder to lose than sticky notes. :)
Jan - I search for things while writing but not words so much. On first draft, I use whatever's handy.
I'm a 'fix as you go' writer, although the fixes are never enough. I still have to go back and make sure I've got good transitions, not too many overused words, or "foggy" words like 'something' or 'anything'.
And I wish I had something creative to do with all the somethings and anythings and its and thems that I find on second draft. Maybe hang them at sunrise.
Is there one word to describe the sound a fog horn makes? Sort of a deep-throated diphthonged EEE-UH.
I dislike shopping.
Stephen Tremp
Stephen - I think coffee is almost a miracle drug.