Comments on: The Novel is Done, Long Live the Novel

By: Jackie Kessler

Jackie Kessler — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:27:51 +0000

End a project? Bloody hell, first I have to **finish** the project. ((EYES WIP WARILY))

Congrats, Di!

By: Fanatical Pupil » [Writing] Organization

Fanatical Pupil » [Writing] Organization — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:34:38 +0000

[…] to figure out how professional writers, you know, write, I wanted to throw out a blockquote - from this post by Diana Pharaoh Francis on SF Novelists - to others who might be looking to assimilate such information. When I write, I put the chapters […]

By: Diana Pharaoh Francis

Diana Pharaoh Francis — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:51:15 +0000

Jess: The daily progress sheet has the date, the chapter I worked on, how many words I got written, and a running total of the wordcount. That running total can be important because it helps me think about pacing. And it’s a metric for knowing whether I’m getting anything done.

Adam: decompression is important, as I’m finding. I’m not hitting the ground running as much as I’d like. Plus I have multiple things I’m working on and I’m doing that so well. I have to find a method.

Karen: I like the idea of project folders. And the last thing I want to do is write the same book over and over. Ug. That would be boring to boot.

By: Matt’s Bookosphere 7/01/08 « Enter the Octopus

Matt’s Bookosphere 7/01/08 « Enter the Octopus — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:30:22 +0000

[…] Interesting peek behind the scenes with novelist Diana Pharoah Francis […]

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:35:06 +0000

I once hears someone at a writer’s conference recommend project folders (the kind that have a grid on the front for recording actions, dates, etc, and are only open at the top, so little pieces of paper don’t fall out), so I got some, and the do help because you can gather up all the loose notes and photocopied pages and stuff and write info about the book or story on the folder.

That’s the easy part. The hard part is mentally shifting gears. If you’re not careful, you can end up rewriting the same book over and over.

By: Adam Heine

Adam Heine — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:45:28 +0000

I’m still unpublished (the first novel is being queried at agents), but I’ve had to switch projects once. First, I gave myself some time off, cuz like you said I couldn’t get the first novel out of my head. When I came back in, I had to do so slowly. I couldn’t start writing the new novel straightaway, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming and outlining just to get my head in the right world.

I wonder, though, if the second novel were a sequel to the first (which it’s not), I think I might be able to just power through from the first novel to the second. I’d still want to give myself time to decompress though.

By: Jessica De Milo

Jessica De Milo — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:13:34 +0000

Drinking heavily, huh? Lots and lots of Tony’s White Russians?

I want to know more about this daily progress sheet: what do you mark on it? where exactly does it live?

I’ve never done a switch in the reasonable time frame you’re talking about. I’ve had either less than 24 hours while writing in a workshop, taken six+ months off, or I’m working on two projects simultaneously.