Why is the last stretch always the longest?

My primary writing goal this summer was to revise my MG novel once more so I can send out the full. But so far, I've started and completed a short story from scratch within 10 days for a contest and written new scenes for my Work In Progress, a YA novel.

The MG revision is moving v-e-r-y slowly, mainly because the few things that must be changed are things that span the whole novel. I can't just revise two chapters; have to revise those chapters and follow the threads that they impact to make sure everything flows. And every time I write fresh passages, I have to oil and polish them and hide the seams. (Like my metaphors?) before they fit in smoothly with passages that have been re-read and revised many times.

They say the first step is the hardest. I don't know. Ending is at least as hard.

Gardens and writing

Ray Rhamey at Writer Unboxed wrote a great post today that involves pumpkins and squash. Since I received so many insightful and funny comments from my gardening post yesterday, I thought I'd direct you over there, to read about how we can learn to receive criticisms and rejections from gardening as well.

[pumpkins in the rain by Muffet]

This might be the only post that weaves together writing and gardening and elephants.

[Elephant by digitalART2]

Everything I need to know about writing I learned from gardening

Actually, probably not everything. Grammar, for one.

Most of my yard is filled with perennials but there are a few spots I leave for annuals. This year I'm so late that I just put in some gazanias this morning.

The work wasn't too bad. Those places have been turned every year for my annuals, and are mostly filled with top soil and those little white spots that come with the potted plants. But the pots this year are of a different size, wider and not as deep, so I had to dig wider, into the clay parts of the ground.

So of course, I thought of writing, about how much easier it is to do things that I've done on a regular basis (dig through dirt that had been dug regularly) but those parts that are left to their own (densely packed and very stubborn clay) are a lot more difficult to tackle.

Then I dug another hole and found some fairly thick roots running through it, and I wondered which plants they belonged to, and whether it would be okay for me to pull them out or if I should dig around them, in which case I'd have to reposition the drip holes. It's not a big deal, just a bit of a pain.

So, of course, I thought about writing, about how surprises often pop up and we have to go through these different decision-making processes.

Then my shovel bent between the handle and the working part. This is the second time it's happened. I thought I'd bought a much sturdier shovel when the last one bit the dust (is this a pun?) and it looks like it may do the very same thing.


So, of course, I thought about writing...

Maybe this is when you chime in and tell me what you learn from your experiences doing yard work and such: roots and foundation, and sweat and weed, shade and part-shade, spades and trimming.

Love to hear your gardening lessons.

From "Cost" by Roxana Robinson

I just started reading Cost by Roxana Robinson, and am thoroughly enjoying the slower pace, after my recent bout of MG adventure books. It feels so luxurious to pay attention to whatever the author brings to the fore: the setting, (if you knew me as a reader and writer, you'd know I am not a big setting person) the ruminations and yes, even back story.

Anyway, I am only at the beginning and plan to take my time savoring the experience, but here is a sentence that I wish I'd written. It's from the point of view of Edward, an 80+ year-old man.

Hearing about other people's lives was either tedious or frustrating; they made so many mistakes.

Doesn't that just tell you a million things about his character?

Judge not, lest ye be judged

So, okay, I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but can't I judge a person by the book she loves? Say, a full grown woman who swoons over a YA book featuring a luminous boy? I know, this says more about my being judgmental and snobbish than the other person's anything besides her tastes in books.

Do you? Judge people by the books they rave about?

And what books do you love that you're afraid to admit to? Or books you're supposed to like but don't?

Too much succulence

I just read Suzanne Collins's Gregor the Overlander books 3 and 4 back to back. Writing, characters, stories: all wonderful.

But now I feel as if I've eaten a bowl of shrimp scampi. I've enjoyed every last bite of these succulent delights but I need to wait a little before I eat more. Food this rich and yummy demands re-living. Or maybe I just need to cleanse my palate.

Time to find the equivalent of lime sorbet, followed by some Vietnamese noodle soup, or potatoes roasted in peanut oil, or pear tarts with a square of dark chocolate in the middle.

A trend in kids' movies?

Took the kids to see Up in 3D this afternoon. The second thought I had afterward, is that there seems to be a trend in making popular kids' books, particularly pictures books, into movies.

(All right, for you who are curious: the first question is why I paid extra $2.50 X 3 for a pair of dorky glasses that give me a headache for a story in which the 3D-ness isn't even important?)

The much heralded Where the Wild Things Are looks to be a big-budget undertaking, and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatball inserts a back-story and protagonist to explain why the weather brings food in Chewandswallow.

To make full-length, or even almost full-length movies from a picture book, the core story has to be padded with subplots or back story. In Night At the Museum, there is the whole divorced-family-with-kid plot line as well as the- disgruntled-employees-cooking-up-a-crime plot line. I mentioned the backstory in Cloudy and I can imagine what they can do with Max and the Wild Things.

But what will they do to Goodnight Moon?

Length of long-hand sessions?

Yesterday I found myself with another unexpected chunk of time "trapped" somewhere with a college-ruled notebook and a working pen. So I wrote. Seven pages later, my mind told me it was time to stop.

I wonder if there is such a thing as an optimum amount of writing I can do at one go, specifically for the writing of the initial draft, the kind of writing that is in equal parts putting into words what's in my mind and finding out how the story goes; that scary, delightful, surprising, hazy type of writing. My last two unexpected gifts of a couple of uninterrupted hours have both yielded seven pages.

Do you find any patterns in your writing time span? Does it change if you type or write?