THE ROMA SEVEN

Well it is that time. While I am not completely done tweaking my manuscript, I think it’s time to start hunting. I found a couple of potential editors and I’m throwing a few tests their way to see what they can do.

When I started this I was doing it for myself. I never thought I would actually take it to the next level. Let’s be honest, I’m not looking to make any sort of money off of this. That isn’t what is important. I just want that hard cover copy of my book, physically in my hands. No matter what who thinks of what. I will be able to say I am a published AUTHOR. HA!

On a different note. I entered this little writing competition thingy for fun. Which I got second place out of thirty participants. Check it out here:

http://romavii.com/333am/

RR

The thing about writing. As the writer you feel the emotion of your character(s). You own that; as if they are actually real people. It consumes you. Portraying that is such a challenge. How do you make others feel that? People don’t see what you see or feel what you feel. The art is to intertwine your emotion with the readers.

Honestly, I am not sure I’m that good. Maybe if I wrote a ton of stories I would be. I get engrossed, but how do I get a reader engrossed!

I spoke about writers block some time back. I spoke about listening to tunes and bla bla bla.

Every time I have ever had a hard time writing I listened to this one artist. Some of his music spoke volumes to me. By listening to his music it made me write.

I was so emotionally involved with what I was writing that I went to the extent to personally message him. That is out of my character. Famous people are just famous and I read their random shit on whatever you read it on.

But this one guy got me through some major obstacles because I listened to his music when I was struggling.

What made this dude awesome, was that he responded. I said thank you for what you do to get me through this process. And he personally responded. That’s real.

RESPECT GREG HOLDEN.

I’m far from done.

RR

I really thought I would be much further along in this process by now. I just completed my second draft. Problem is I didn’t take the story as far as I wanted to take it. I didn’t fill in all the holes I wanted to fill in.

Part of the problem was that I made a decision to structure this a lot different then the original version. I only made that decision three quarters through the second draft. So as a result I rushed to the end.

One major change is the fact I made the decision to change the whole thing in to past tense. This was one of the major things that I battled with from the beginning. It will be A LOT of work to make all the appropriate changes. It will be a lot longer than anticipated until I reach a finished product.

I am also literally rewriting the whole thing. I think that might make it easier to fill in a lot of the gaps.

I want to finish the third draft before mid November. At that point I would like to get a beta read from someone who is decent before I send it for a final edit.

Anyways back to writing.

RR

I literally thought after actually completing the first draft, that I would have to do some major editing, but not much actual story writing. Then BOOM I’d have a story to give to a beta reader who would help me touch it up, then polish it with the third draft.

My growth from the day I wrote the first word on my page to now makes me cringe at some of the crap that I wrote when I started. Now the fixing is actually adding. Word count instead of decreasing and staying somewhat consistent with the first draft, is INCREASING.

My point. I’m getting pissed and discouraged, because I thought the biggest job was done. Little did I know, the first draft, is the easy part.

I need to step back and regroup. It’s pretty overwhelming.

RR

Whether it’s the first draft or second draft, it doesn’t matter.

I always hit some sort of blocks. I have surpassed these blocks by doing a couple different things. Sometimes I walk away for a couple days from writing all together. Sometimes I walk away, but not from writing. I might just write a random scene that has nothing to do with anything. Or sometimes I play a song that relates to my character(s) or the story in general. It really helps.

As for the writing about random things, I’ve done that many times. I want to share one. Keep in mind the quality of writing might not be there, but it’s a part of this journey of mine, which this blog is about. So here’s the link…. It is a couple scenes that may not make sense. But it it is just an exercise.  http://romavii.com/wil-foley/

Then there is the whole music thing. Which I will have plenty more than this one, that I already have here, but here’s the first one. http://romavii.com/greg-holden-lost-boy/     So good for the ROMA crew….

RR

Putting 85,000 words together for the first time, is something I am proud of.

“First time,” is the keywords there.

I am brand new to this. My grammar sucks, my word choices are sometimes  limited and a thesaurus becomes my bible. BUT I think I do have a story to tell, and all that other stuff can be fixed by a professional.

One of the steps in this process, is throwing some of the work in front of people. Friends and family being one. But the real hard task is throwing yourself to the wolves. Putting your work in front of the eyes of strangers, who are established writers. People who have been doing this for years, AND putting it in front of them publicly mind you. Then getting critiques publicly, which anyone can see. That is a really hard thing to do; but I do it.

It is always helpful, but honestly, it is sometimes discouraging. I’ve always been kind of oversensitive, so this does effect me when I see something that I felt I wrote very well, get ripped apart. But I need to deal with that and expect that. In a twisted sense I need that.

So I will continue throwing myself to the wolves.

When this is done I will self-publish it to Kindle and Create a space and the like. And if anyone gets a copy, I will have to deal with the reviews. So these critiques I subject myself to, is my training ground to thicken my skin.

All that being said, these people who do the critiques on my samples, are WRITERS. They are very technical. And at the end of the day, some of the stuff that they point out, a reader (who doesn’t write) probably won’t notice some of these things.

Maybe I should join a readers forum, and ask if they would critique some of my work.

Anyways, I don’t know who, if anyone reads this rambling. But I am growing to like this idea, and having a place to express what’s in my head, that doesn’t just stay in my head.

RR

Where do my characters names come from?

Let me tell you. After so much research on putting a novel together, I have learnt, there are many commonalities. But each writer has their own individual strategies on putting their story together also.

I mentioned on a previous post, if you read it. ( READ MY STUFF YO!), that I don’t do outlines. I write a word, and then let the story lead me.

But what about the names of my characters?

Here’s what I did. I came up with the story idea. Then picture the character’s faces. I pictured their actions. I pictured their motivations, flaws bla bla bla etc etc etc.

Putting a name to them was a challenge. So what I did was this.

I went down my Facebook list. I thought about people I knew in the past, even as far as peeps I just met once. Some that weren’t even on Facebook, rather their names were dropped in my head when I brainstormed.

A lot of the names in this story are names of people I know or knew. Never exactly though. Sometimes it is a combination of someone’s first name, and someone else’s last name. Sometimes it’s someone’s middle name. Sometimes I even take someone’s name and change it a bit, but it’s very similar to the person’s name.

I don’t do this with all my characters, but there are quite a few.

So once I finalize this book. Anyone I know, especially my high school friends, will now easily recognize some names of people.

In closing, I never chose these names, based on relationship, I chose them based on coolness.

Back to editing.

RR

I’m going to get used to this blogging thing. Two in one day. Don’t worry it will die down. This is just to let you know, I have cleaned up Chapter 1 and 2 to the point of showing it publicly.

Still needs real editing from someone more qualified, but you will get the point. There maybe grammar errors and such. But I’m not the best when it comes to grammar. At the same time I’m not THAT bad.

Going through a second time around is interesting. From start to finish I have grown when it comes to writing. And after doing just two chapters, I now realize, that second draft might be harder than the first. Me vs me is a tough match.

Anyways, if you look above by the about me, you will see the two columns that say chapter 1 and chapter 2. These will be the only chapters I disclose. So you may not get the idea where I’m going with this. I just wanted to share just a small piece.

Anyways let me know what you think. http://romavii.com/writing/chapters/

Is this where I’m suppose to say like my Facebook page, follow my blog, follow me on Twitter… I actually don’t even use twitter but I have an account. And I think this blog site updates it for me. Maybe one day I will look at my twitter account.

RR