Betraying Your Voice Is Bad

I also speel gud

With an eye toward revision and submission, I picked up a novella I wrote last summer. It was written about two months before I wrote my SYTYCW entry, and I didn't think that there would be much difference in the writing style.

Wrong.

I remember now that I'd read something... some piece of writing advice(like I do) and I'd decided to Improve My Writing by incorporating this advice into my style.

The result? I completely lost my voice.

I read the first couple chapters and it was like someone else wrote it.

Someone slow.

With a limited vocabulary and stunted imagination!

Maybe someone in a coma, or perhaps this is what it would be like if a zombie tried to write a novella. A novella about zombies.

Bad. So bad.

I'm sure my skill set has changed, improved since last summer. With the revision letters, I'm getting an idea of my problem areas and learning what I need to do to address. All that is good, but I've come to the conclusion that in trying so hard to WRITE RIGHT, I sabotaged myself.

Gearing up to rewrite it now, and actually excited to do so, but so dismayed at this feat of ridiculousness I perpetrated like... six months ago.

Lesson learned. If it ain't broke, stop messing with it! Work on craft, not on voice. I've got my voice, and I'm comfortable with it. I like it. Now I need to concentrate on effective storytelling.

Books, Accountability, and The Walking Dead

First, I have to say I love winning books! I actually got the one from the referral link a few posts ago, and am happily reading Louisa George's debut today, which I just noticed isn't available for purchase through harlequin.com, only Mills&Boon. Only three chapters in so far, but loving the characters! I also managed to snag a Superromance(ebook link: Here Comes the Groom) from Karina Bliss the other day on the Superromance blog, so it's next on my TBR pile.

On the goals: So far, so good, though it might be a two steps forward, one step back sort of 'so far, so good.' I am keeping up with daily word count, but today I decided to start the story over. So much has changed I feel like having a rewrite of the first couple chapters will be more in tune with my vision of the story, and will also help propel me into the way the rest of it needs to go. Plus, it should be pretty easy since I already have written this once. Or twice... Okay, this is the last time I'm starting over before finishing the entire draft... but I am starting over again today: eWife v 3.0.

Who's your daddy!?

Finally, I'm addicted to The Walking Dead. Like, really addicted. I knew I loved it because it's all about the characters and how they change during their tentative zombiepocalypse survival, but I never really put together how much it was like a soap opera with a living dead backdrop before. It's no wonder people get addicted to it.

I even actually connected(briefly) with a, er, somewhat unsophisticated cousin(who I usually fail to interact with) over The Walking Dead. I asked her: which character do you like the best? And who do you think would be the best leader? Both of her answers were: Daryl (which really didn't surprise me, I do live in Appalachia). So I'm going to ask ya'll: Who do you like best, and who would you want to follow? And WHY? That's the important bit. What is it about these characters that inspires or interests us?

For me, I just love Glenn, he's still sweet and I think he has more innocence about him than Carl does, and Carl is like... 10 or something. It's neat to see him remain untainted, somehow, by all this. Bad stuff might make him sad for a bit, but he rebounds, and still thinks of others first. I know that overall, this is Rick's story - he's the protagonist, the leader/character who struggles the most with whats moral and what needs to be done. But, I have to say, if it was all about staying alive, I would back Shane to keep me alive. I hasten to add: He could keep you alive, but only until his bad people skills and hair-trigger forced you to kill him, OR YOURSELF.

And as much as I hate to admit it(since it doesn't speak highly about my maturity, stability and reason), sometimes that caveman thing Shane has going on is hot. You know, a really destructive kind of hot. Future burning-bed kind of hot. And to my shame, I must concede I still have the urge to fix the bad-boy. What's up with that? I should be past that by NOW, surely.