Crazy past few weeks

So I know my posts haven't been exactly riveting lately, but there have been many things, not all good unfortunately, happening in my life.

Since graduation my cat has died :-(, and my car has been out of commission for three whole weeks. I've also started a new job, which I'm loving so far. But overall it has been difficult to get much reading or writing done, though I have tried.

The writing group is going well, we've been meeting every other Friday, but I am experiencing some dilemmas that I hadn't anticipated.

Some of my group have extremely personal tastes when it comes to descriptive writing--now, don't get me wrong, I love descriptive writing, but it is very difficult to maintain a good balance. One or two members of my group seem to feel that the more descriptive their writing is the better, but some of their scenes are, well, burdened by description. This coming up Friday I mean to talk to one of them and explain how quality is better than quantity when it comes to analogies and metaphors, but at the same time, I feel like they might not take this advice to heart simply from how they have reacted throughout our meetings. For them more is always better, but I can't help but feel the opposite.

How do you manage your overly descriptive passages? Do you pick and choose the best after it has been written, or do you prefer to have an abundance of description?

And would there be a better way for me to express my concern to my group members?

Thanks for reading!

Overwhelmed

So there is a lot going on in my life right now, which is why I've been rather neglectful of this blog. But I'm trying. Graduation is right around the corner (exactly one month), and there is just too much left for me to do before the date comes rushing up at me and then I'm left in the uncertainty that will no-doubt come after.

My writing, unfortunately, is taking the fall for this, mainly because it's one of the few things that can be put on the back burner for now. But it saddens me. I want writing to be a priority but it just can't right now. I just keep telling myself that in one month I'll be able to make more time for it--and that I'll be able to read whatever I want, which I haven't done since Christmas break.

But the few days I have been able to work on my writing I have worked on rewriting my WIP, and I realize that if I had spent more time planning things out the first time around I wouldn't have to spend all this time now, organizing the pieces of my story. Even that makes me feel slightly guilty though. I spend so much time working on the second draft, that I'm ignoring all these other stories that are waiting to be developed. I have two larger ideas that I'm slowly expanding, and then about six or seven short story ideas, but my obsessive compulsive nature demands that I finish what I'm working on before I can move on to the next project.

How do you deal with multiple projects? Do you feel the need to finish what you're working on, even if it means sacrificing other unique ideas, that could be potentially better stories than what you are working on now? Or do you split your time between rewrites and new projects?

When we Meet Again

It's impossible to not feel close to one's characters when writing them. When writing their story. They react as you create or destroy the world around them, and because of that you feel what they feel, even when it is not how you would react.

I've gotten to a very sentimental section in revising my first draft, and I'm sorry to say that I don't relate to my characters and their reactions nearly as much as I did when I was writing this set of scenes. I distinctly remember my own emotional response then, but now--I've crossed out most of it! I've even made a note in my notebook that says "less crying."

But I wonder, does it have more to do with the distance that's created in reading something slowly? I'm partly editing as I go along, and therefore spend close to ten minutes on certain pages. Or is it simply because I'm now more objective, and realize that my characters are a bit wimpy in this section, and completely in contrast with the kinds of characters I want them to be/become?

Has anyone encountered a similar problem? Do you raise your brow at a certain character's response and wonder what, exactly, you were thinking at the time?

Do Not Read Until March 28th >:-/

...is what I wrote on a purple post-it two weeks ago. A post-it which I then placed over the title of a  new story I had just finished. This is part of a writing regimen I'm trying to create for myself in which, instead of attacking a new work with my red pen as soon as it is done, I force myself to put it away for a while and return to the story with fresh eyes.

I'd almost made it too--but succumbed to my urges four days ahead of schedule. The first time I forced myself to do this it worked just fine. The larger project I'm currently editing/re-writing/hiding from, because the writing sometimes makes me embarrassed for myself, waited six weeks to be looked at again. But this tiny one just could not wait. It called to me, and I ignored the "serious face" I'd drawn on the post-it, deftly ripping it off so I did not have to see it glower at me for trespassing. 

I'm an impatient person in general, but part of me felt guilty for breaking a rule concerning my own writing that I'm trying to establish. 

Do you revise a work as soon as it's completed or do you ignore the urge to revise right away? And if you do, how long do you usually give yourself before you go back to it? 

Editing

...it seems I'll be repetitive in my posts early on, but editing is an important part of my life right now--a turning point really. To recap: I've never really edited my own work before, mainly because I hadn't written anything which I considered worth the time and effort to edit.

While clicking around on twitter recently I saw an article that discussed getting over "the editing blues." I remember some of what the article said but I was surprised, and a little disappointed, to find that most of the advice there was based on procrastination, on doing things in between editing to make yourself feel better about it.

Start a new project, was one of the main points. But what if your life has become one in which you have a few projects floating around, waiting to be edited!? What then? Just keep writing in hopes that you'll get tired of that and then want to edit? I know, I know--I'm being facetious. But I'm starting to understand those people that ask: doesn't analyzing what you read ruin the story? Isn't it more difficult to look past the writing and get lost in it?

Well, yes! It is! Especially when it's your own story, because writing is even more enjoyable than reading in that you literally (ha-ha) get lost in the story, it takes you with it as it goes on. But going back to it....eek! That's how I feel about my own 'pride and joy' right now. But I guess that's a good thing--because I can tell my writing has improved dramatically within one project, which is, hey--great! But it just makes it that much more difficult to get through it without getting bogged down with each and every sentence.

Anyone, out there, have a magical cure for the editing blues that is, well, efficient?