Enter the Blue Pen

Filed Under: writing

Published On: March 13, 2011

Piece of cake, right

After a sporadic five months, I can say with some certainly that Project Kingdom does not suck. It’s not great, but as you can see above, the bones are there. All I have to do now is go back, cut out the crud, rewrite the crap and fill in the holes.

It was a bit of a rough road to get here, especially as I was sticking to the hard part of Hemingway’s maxim “Write drunk, edit sober.”

If you’re wondering about the image, that’s the revised outline for the book. Those are just eight of the hundredish  pages of content I generated outside of the Project Kingdom story. I have a working notebook that includes geographic data. I have an army guide which delves into unit sizes, outfiting and movement rates. I have crudely drawn maps. And I have an original timeline which I now realize I did not put nearly enough thought into.And, of course, my editing journal.

Those above eight pieces of paper contain every scene in Project Kingdom, and they’re color-coded to let me know what needs to happen with each scene. Green scenes need to be moved to another point in the story. Red scenes need to be written in order for the plot to make sense. And the light blue scenes need a massive overhaul. Black? Those just need a minor overhaul.

Did you just hear that? That was the sound of my social life crumbling. Going to be a sober Spring.

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  • Katie

    Whenever you need a break I have 3 crazy kids for you! Zac always comes here to look at your site – that’s why I knew you had a new post! By the way – you are amazing – I know why I never wrote – too much to think about.