{"id":3842,"date":"2015-09-24T01:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=3842"},"modified":"2015-09-22T19:12:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T02:12:20","slug":"is-pre-writing-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/is-pre-writing-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Is pre-writing for you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blogger Becca Lawton<\/a> writes about pre-writing.<\/p>\n

Excerpt from Becca Lawton’s 8\/31\/15 blog post<\/a>, about her time in Canada on a Fullbright Scholarship to research her book:<\/p>\n

Writing a novel is such a huge undertaking that I\u2019m amazed anyone writes more than one . . . I\u2019m completing\u00a0a submittable draft of my second novel . . . Now that I\u2019m dragging my sorry carcass to the finish line, it\u2019s fun to look back at this post written September 29, 2014, soon after the start of the\u00a0project, when I was just starting to pour all my hope and energy and learning into it:<\/p>\n

I just completed sixty pages of prewriting for a second novel . . . They\u2019re filled with answers to questions like, \u201cWho are the main characters in your book?\u201d and \u201cWhat are their wants in every scene?\u201d and \u201cIs the setting recognizable yet unique?\u201d I\u2019ve modified the questions from a checklist developed by\u00a0Janet Neipris, from her book\u00a0To Be a Playwright<\/em>,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>a resource\u00a0I find essential. Typing up to ten pages each morning before breakfast, I completed the questionnaire in a week. At home it would have taken me a month. Although the impatient part of me wanted to zip through all the questions with an \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d or \u201cWho cares?\u201d I focused on each one with as much focus\u00a0as I could muster. Grudgingly I\u2019ve come to admit that if I pour myself into a pre-write of this kind, the book\u2019s first draft flows much easier. Prewriting saves time, guesswork, and rewriting sweat. A week saves months or years of labor later. I know. I\u2019ve written books both ways.<\/p>\n

\"Becca<\/a>. . . buoyed by the knowledge that I can start the first draft of my second novel tomorrow morning. That knowledge feels like a precious gift after more than a year of dreaming, applying, and then preparing to come to Canada on a Fullbright Scholarship to research a book. Every day I\u2019m grateful for the support.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Melinda Kelley<\/strong><\/em><\/h5>\n
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Guest Blogger Becca Lawton writes about pre-writing. Excerpt from Becca Lawton’s 8\/31\/15 blog post, about her time in Canada on a Fullbright Scholarship to research her book: Writing a novel is such a huge undertaking that I\u2019m amazed anyone writes more than one . . . I\u2019m completing\u00a0a submittable draft of my second novel . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[482],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-becca-lawton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-ZY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3854,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions\/3854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}