Oregonian

[Oregonian]

This weekend I had my eight online hours of my writing class.  It actually went a little better -- the stuff we are doing seems to be more useful and applicable, so I was happy about that.  And the autumn mood is settling over me.  That is good; the fall is the season when I can get a lot of writing done.  It's just part of my yearly rhythm.  

After my class finished today at 1 p.m. (I have to go to the early church service to be back home by 9 a.m. for the start of the class), I went outside and was inspired to do the thing that has been on my to-do list all summer, which is to cut up the pile of branches that have been sitting to the west of my house since the beginning of summer.  So today I put on the protective glasses and the sound-muffling ear protectors and the leather gloves and fired up the chain saw and cut the branches into small pieces and threw them into the bin, from which they will be hauled away tomorrow.  Hauled the random chunks of cement that were scattered along the west property line, detritus from when the fence was rebuilt, and made piles of them, in preparation to getting rid of them.  Felt energetic, like a kind of nesting at the end of the growing season, before the cold weather sets in.  I'm hoping it will spill over into writing, as it did last year.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Oregonian

[Oregonian]

I watched a really fascinating documentary last night on YouTube about the invention of the printing press in the mid- fifteenth century.  The host not only told us a lot about Johannes Gutenberg and how he invented the printing press, but the host and other artisans built from wood a working copy of Gutenberg's first press, as nearly as they could figure it out, and the host learned how the movable metal type was made (and he actually made a letter 'e' in the style of the font of that day), how the paper was made from linen rags (and he actually made sheets of paper), and then they obtained , from some historical source, a modern-made rack of type set, all ready to print from, of a single page (two columns) of Gutenberg's Bible, and they printed copy after copy of this page on their newly constructed printing press.  

By printing a dozen pages in quick succession, they demonstrated how revolutionary this new process was.  It was emotional just to watch it and get some feel of what a world-changing event had taken place at that time.  Before the printing press was invented, all the books in Europe had been written by hand, slowly and laboriously.  Fifty years after its invention, there were twenty million printed books in existence in Europe.

It was interesting to learn that hand-written bibles produced as my character Martin did, in my novel Tiramisu, often had little hand-written notes on the bottom of the final page, written by the poor scriptor who had done all the work, saying how difficult it was, how their hands were cold and their bodies ached from the effort of writing so precisely for long periods of time.  Fascinating documentary.  And to think that one hundred years after Martin/Gerard did his scriptorial work, the printing press has succeeded all the scriptors like him

[Sapphire_Skies]

That sounds a really interesting documentary. I know a bit about the history and introduction of it in England, and yes, it totally revolutionised the ability to access and own written works. I've seen some of those old illuminated scripts and man, they must have been painstaking to create. Created mostly by monks I believe as who else would have the time to labour over such a thing? I love this sort of thing.

[Oregonian]

Good News.  On track again.  During a 360-mile drive with my daughter Elaine on Friday night I discussed with her at length my difficulty in characterizing Tracey in The Crofter and the Snake,\.  I told her that after I excised all the parts of Chapter 5 that she had marked for deletion in my first draft of Chapter 5, back in July, I had essentially nothing left, a character full of giant holes and no personality, and I couldn't figure out how to fill the holes, what I should put in them.  

The upshot of the conversation was that she said she was put in mind of families that adhere to an extremist religion or social philosophy and bring their children up in that religion/philosophy.  Upon approaching adulthood, some of the children become even more firmly adherent to the religion/philosophy, while others of the children begin to see the flaws and fallacies of what they had been taught and start to move away from their former indoctrination.  The Slytherin culture can be seen as a religion/philosophy of that kind, a cultish conviction of their own superiority and social position together with a contempt/devaluation of everyone who is not one of them.  Sirius Black would be an example of an adolescent who actively rejected this philosophy, but there could have been others who also moved toward a more egalitarian philosophy without demonstrating so much open rebellion.

I think that this concept will fit Tracey perfectly, and it fits in with some of the details I have already written in unposted draft work, so I feel ready to move forward with some sureness into Chapter 5.

 

 

[Oregonian]

I have been re-reading the documents of my chapters of Tiramisu, scouring them for remaining typos in preparation for, first, replacing all of the currently posted chapters in the archives with the Scourgified versions, and second, readying them for printing into a hard-bound book.  I was dragging my heels about making the replacements, thinking that the chapters would be offline for a bit, and then I realized Duh, I'm a validated author, so the replacement process will be instantaneous and I can immediately see if it didn't go correctly.  (Sometimes a little slow on the uptake.)  

I printed off a section of Chapter 12 (the scene outside the gates of the Abbey of St. Mary in York) to read at the Willamette Writers open mike session tomorrow, and when I had the printed pages in my hands, in a font large enough to read easily on Zoom, you guessed it, a couple of egregious typos popped up at me.  So I fixed them in my document.

[Oregonian]

I just got off the Zoom open mic meeting of Willamette Writers, at which I read my section from Chapter 12 of Tiramisu.  As I was reviewing the printout in the opening minutes of the meeting, another egregious typo jumped out at me.  How in the world had I not seen it before now?  How many times have I read that chapter?  And what does that tell me about the entire manuscript?  I shudder to think.  *big sigh*

The listeners did leave nice comments in the chat box.  "St. Mary in the Rain.  I love it."  "Victoria, entertaining!"  "That holy fox.  Loved it."  "Love the 'voice'."  "Me too."  

[Oregonian]

The Growing season is winding down.  I am clearing out some of my vegetable garden -- the stuff that is done producing and is beginning to die back.  I dug my monster potato plant that has finally died back completely and got five pounds of potatoes from that one plant.  I will hold off digging the rest of the potatoes; they can sleep just fine underground for a while longer. 

I twisted my ankle while digging out the center of a circular garden of bulbs (daffodils, tulips, lilies).  A tree had been cut down there some years ago, and as the roots slowly rotted and collapsed, the surface of the ground sank down more and more, so that it looked like my bulbs were growing in the bottom of a sinkhole (which they were). So I was digging it out to salvage the bulbs, planning to fill it in with new dirt up to the surrounding surface elevation and then replant the bulbs, but while climbing in and out of the hole, I managed to twist my ankle, which became steadily more painful.  So I went indoors, barely able to walk and feeling very sorry for myself.  Now, two days later, it's much better.  Don't know what this has to do with my sluggish writing, just another excuse, I suppose.  Never a lack of excuses!

I truly hope that you are all doing well and accomplishing more than I am, but I always am optimistic about the future.

[grumpy cat]

On 9/27/2021 at 6:30 AM, Oregonian said:

readying them for printing into a hard-bound book.

ooh i had no idea you were doing this! are you going to publish it or just make a book for yourself and/or friends/family? either way, it sounds really cool!

[Oregonian]

Hi, Kris.  Thank you for commenting on my post of a while back.  I have done this before -- printed  my writing and hard-bound it into a book -- once for Tiny Animals (for my granddaughter, per her request), and once for Dark Enough To See The Stars (for my daughter, as a surprise birthday gift).  For Tiramisu I will make a couple of copies, one for my daughter & granddaughter, and one for my niece who loved the story ( and alerted me to typos) and asked me to print her a copy also.  That is not hard to do, once the story is formatted on the desktop printing app.  I am reminded of my recent remarks about the invention of the printing press and the miracle of being able to make many copies rapidly, once the type has been set.

The slower part of the project is binding the pages, which involves sewing the signatures onto the tapes, and then gluing everything together, one step at a time -- the tapes, cover boards, the linen fabric, the endpapers, the illustration on the front cover, and at each step the book-in-process goes into the press for 24 hours for the glue to dry before taking the next step, so it's a long process.  I wish I could visit a book publishing factory and see how they manage to do the whole job automatically.

Nothing that I write that is connected to the HP canon could be published commercially, which is why I have to bind them myself.  Also, I am still finding typos in the chapters, even when I am certain that I have found them all. *sigh*.  So I will keep going chapter by chapter, scouring for typos, and then replacing the chapters in the archives with the perfected chapters, for the reading pleasure of people who visit my AP.

[grumpy cat]

25 minutes ago, Oregonian said:

The slower part of the project is binding the pages, which involves sewing the signatures onto the tapes, and then gluing everything together, one step at a time -- the tapes, cover boards, the linen fabric, the endpapers, the illustration on the front cover, and at each step the book-in-process goes into the press for 24 hours for the glue to dry before taking the next step, so it's a long process.  I wish I could visit a book publishing factory and see how they manage to do the whole job automatically.

oh wow, and you do these things yourself? it sounds complicated but also kinda interesting at the same time tbh. i'm now thinking about martin and his writing/manuscript-copying-skills

28 minutes ago, Oregonian said:

Nothing that I write that is connected to the HP canon could be published commercially, which is why I have to bind them myself.  Also, I am still finding typos in the chapters, even when I am certain that I have found them all. *sigh*.  So I will keep going chapter by chapter, scouring for typos, and then replacing the chapters in the archives with the perfected chapters, for the reading pleasure of people who visit my AP.

ah yeah, i kinda forgot this little bit oops i know some people managed to turn their fics into real books by changing relevant details/the setting, but i don't know, tiramisu seems perfect the way it is, it's such a lovely story, despite the typos you're finding - on that note, i never print out my stories but i do it with all the important writing i do for my job because it's literally the only way i notice typos for some reason. i could've read the thing on my computer screen a hundred times and not notice the things i do when it's printed out *sigh* so i know how you feel

[Oregonian]

It's exactly the same for me, kris @grumpy cat.  I can read the computer screen  a hundred times, but I don't see the typos until I print it out.  That could get kinda spendy (in printer ink) to print out a book as long as Tiramisu.  An alternative is to put the chapters into Word Counter, where I do see the typos more easily.

[Oregonian]

Just found and copied an informative article about sheep intelligence -- how they think, learn, behave, socialize, and even how they move their ears to indicate their emotional state (like our dogs do).  Sheep are surprisingly smart.  I can use this info for my story The Crofter and the Snake, since Howard has to know and observe what his sheep do. 

[PinsandKneazles]

18 hours ago, Oregonian said:

Just found and copied an informative article about sheep intelligence -- how they think, learn, behave, socialize, and even how they move their ears to indicate their emotional state (like our dogs do).  Sheep are surprisingly smart.  I can use this info for my story The Crofter and the Snake, since Howard has to know and observe what his sheep do. 

I love how sheep recognise each other (and members of other species) by their facial features

[Oregonian]

I have now scanned the text of twenty chapters of Tiramisu with an eagle eye, looking for typos, and have found and fixed several of them.  I'll be done with this final proofing in a day or two more, and then I'll replace all the chapters in the archives with the spiffed-up ones.  That will make for slightly easier reading, without random typos grabbing the reader's attention and jolting him out of the story.  Then the documents will also be ready to feed into my desktop publishing app, which I haven't used for over a year.  Here's hoping it all comes back to me!

[Oregonian]

Quote

On 10/11/2021 at 1:38 PM, grumpy cat said:

i know some people managed to turn their fics into real books by changing relevant details/the setting, but i don't know, tiramisu seems perfect the way it is.

I agree with you, kris.  The ending of Tiramisu caps off the story so well, gives it so much meaning, that I can't think of any non-magical scene that would emphasize so strongly that Martin/Gerard is actively wanted at this final place that he comes to.  I did remove the HP reference in my story Forgive Us Our Trespasses when I submitted it to my creative writing class at the college, changing the final destination of Mairi the ghost from Hogwarts castle to a generic ruined castle in the Scottish highlands (there are lots of those in Scotland) where 16th-century wannabe Druids had taken up residence, and I think it actually worked a little better. The HP setting wasn't crucial to what the story had to say.

I have finished scanning the chapter documents of Tiramisu for typos.  Found a point in which an entire line-and-a-half had dropped out accidentally, probably during a moment of editing, leaving a head-scratching bit of prose.  But I was able to locate and restore the missing words from another source.  Avoided that ghastly feeling of "Oh, no, part of my manuscript is missing and I don't know where to find it again."

 

[Oregonian]

Fall has set in, in earnest.  Here in Oregon we don't have the massive display of autumn color like they do back east because so many of our trees here are conifers instead of deciduous species.  So we really appreciate the deciduous trees that we do have.  There is a tall tree in the park across the street from my house which turns an intense shade of red every year, blood red, and I see it out my living room window.  Being the only red tree that I see in that direction, it dominates the scene, strikingly beautiful whether the sun shines on it or whether the sky is cloudy and gray.  An unfailing spectacle of October.

Last year I started writing Tiramisu on October 15 and finished it on November 30.  Yesterday I got my mass of resource materials, notes, and manuscript chunks of Crofter/Snake organized into folders and filed in a desktop folder rack, and today after church, feeling much less disorganized and with a better handle on my material, I sat down and rewrote Chapter 5. based on my daughter's advice and some recent flashes of inspiration.  It is only 2428 words.  I will see what she thinks of it.  Still not great, but better.  It's good to be writing, in any case.

[Oregonian]

After I went to bed last night, but before I went to sleep, I had a great idea for a scene and some plot development at a later point in Crofter/Snake. I considered leaping out of bed, turning on the light, and writing down notes of the ideas, but I was not so far on in the direction of sleep that I couldn't think rationally, so I trusted that I would remember the idea in the morning, which I did.  So now I have another isolated section of the story to write up and file away in the "Scenes" folder of my desktop file rack.  This writing job, unlike Tiramisu (which I wrote sequentially), is turning into a jigsaw pulse of many scenes that will have to be assembled in order.  I've never written like that before.  Do any of you ever do that?  Do you do it, Noelle @inmyownlittlecorner?

[inmyownlittlecorner]

4 hours ago, Oregonian said:

After I went to bed last night, but before I went to sleep, I had a great idea for a scene and some plot development at a later point in Crofter/Snake. I considered leaping out of bed, turning on the light, and writing down notes of the ideas, but I was not so far on in the direction of sleep that I couldn't think rationally, so I trusted that I would remember the idea in the morning, which I did.  So now I have another isolated section of the story to write up and file away in the "Scenes" folder of my desktop file rack.  This writing job, unlike Tiramisu (which I wrote sequentially), is turning into a jigsaw pulse of many scenes that will have to be assembled in order.  I've never written like that before.  Do any of you ever do that?  Do you do it, Noelle @inmyownlittlecorner?

I have written that way in very early drafts of a project, like when I'm just kicking around the idea for the first time. But when I write my official first or second draft, I go in order. But I know a lot of writers who do the jigsaw method, so it's totally a valid way to work. I'm excited to see what you come up with!

[Oregonian]

This is what they call the triumph of hope over experience.  How long have I been working on this story?  It goes back to 2013 and the Missing Moments class in the Hogwarts Academy of MNFF (Mugglenet FanFiction).  I created an extensive headcanon for my missing moment, excerpted a bit of it (Greenhouse Seven) for my final exam in that class, and have been stewing about the rest of it ever since.  I wrote a 10,000+-word version of the full story some years later, but it was unsatisfactory because it was too short to be fully developed, so it just stayed buried in my brain like an unquiet corpse, or maybe an exceedingly slow-germinating seed.  I got to the point of being afraid of it--a story impossible to tell, but with shining moments and scenes glimmering far off in the distance, little pinpoints of light.  They kept beckoning me--"Come, Vicki, here we are, don't be timid, you can do it..."  I wrote like mad last autumn and finished Tiramisu in less than seven weeks; now it is hard to believe that I can do that again.  I tend to get too bound up in my stories.

But the Growing Season is over.  We are expecting a few dry days towards the end of the week, and I will dig all my remaining potatoes, and bring all the remaining tomatoes (there are a lot of them) into the house to ripen on the windowsill so that I can say that I have home-grown tomatoes in November, and a few more weeks of raking fallen leaves when I feel stir-crazy and must get out of the house and do something physical.  

So far I have 5 chapters posted and the sixth chapter all typed up and ready to post after I hear from my second beta (my son).  Some future chapters are already written and typed, or partially so, and other parts are written in my head.  Some characters are starting to loom larger than initially envisioned, as their contributions become more focused, and the old 10,000+-word manuscript is full of usable material and completed scenes.  Some mysteries remain stubbornly locked in secrecy, but they will eventually reveal themselves, as did the final chapter of Dark Enough To See The Stars so many years ago.

What I need from you guys is encouragement to keep going, pats on the back and a few good, healthy shoves.  This needs to be finished.

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Oregonian
typo

[RonsGirlFriday]

4 hours ago, Oregonian said:

I got to the point of being afraid of it--a story impossible to tell, but with shining moments and scenes glimmering far off in the distance, little pinpoints of light.

Oh wow, I relate to this feeling so much!! You want to tell it but where to even begin? But you wish someone could just see these scenes that live in your head exactly the way you're seeing them.

 

I really admire how much work you obviously put into your writing craft here -- because it is, it's a craft, and you treat it that way -- and the standards you very clearly hold for yourself and the finished product you're willing to present. I have a bad habit myself of being married to my first draft (however long it takes me to produce it) and finding the revision process more daunting than the drafting. How many revisions do you typically put a chapter through (or story, if it's one you post all at once) before you finally publish it?

What are you finding most often is the sticking point in terms of (not) getting this project done? Characters? Plot? Something to do with how the narrative itself comes off?

[RonsGirlFriday]

(I'm sorry if this is a double post -- ??? -- I posted this earlier and when I'm here in the thread I see it as a posted comment from earlier but when I'm viewing the forum it shows this topic has no replies yet -- and also tells me my first comment doesn't exist when I go to edit it -- and it's just weirding me out, so here I am again just in case.)

 

7 hours ago, Oregonian said:

I got to the point of being afraid of it--a story impossible to tell, but with shining moments and scenes glimmering far off in the distance, little pinpoints of light.

Oh wow, I relate to this feeling so much!! You want to tell it but where to even begin? But you wish someone could just see these scenes that live in your head exactly the way you're seeing them.

 

I really admire how much work you obviously put into your writing craft here -- because it is, it's a craft, and you treat it that way -- and the standards you very clearly hold for yourself and the finished product you're willing to present. I have a bad habit myself of being married to my first draft (however long it takes me to produce it) and finding the revision process more daunting than the drafting. How many revisions do you typically put a chapter through (or story, if it's one you post all at once) before you finally publish it?

What are you finding most often is the sticking point in terms of (not) getting this project done? Characters? Plot? Something to do with how the narrative itself comes off?

Edited October 28, 2021 by RonsGirlFriday

[Oregonian]

Hi!  Thank you for your thoughts, Melanie.  I identify with your statement so much, that "...you wish someone could just see these scenes that live in your head exactly the way you're seeing them."  I think that one sentence sums up why I keep trying, never giving up, making bits of progress, because if I don't, then these scenes will die with me and be buried in my grave and No One Will Ever See Them Again.  That's what drove me to write Tiramisu, which actually was a whole lot easier to write because I didn't have to try to fit it into the well-known and infinitely-expanded canon/fanon of Hogwarts School.

I don't revise a lot on paper because I compose a lot in my head, so you could say that I am revising in the way that storytellers revised in the days before reading and writing, thinking about how they wanted to tell their stories.  When I finally put pen to paper, I have a very good (but not perfect) idea of what I'm going to say and how to say it.  But as I write and the scene unfolds before my eyes, little enriching expansions take place.  It's kind of like watching a movie twice, and the second time you watch it, you notice things that you didn't notice the first time around.  For example, in Tiramisu, when Martin is getting on the boat in Edinburgh, and he and Brodric are approaching the purser, I could just see that the purser was going to try (successfully) to extort some bribe money from Martin by initially refusing to allow Martin to take Tiramisu on board.  So I just wrote that incident into the scene.  It wasn't a plot point, really, just something that was bound to happen at that time and place.

So my writing is slow because I think about how I want my sentences to fall, and I will work simultaneously on story line and writing quality.  For example, if I can't think of the exact word I want, I stop writing down sentences and take a mental detour to find that word, and then I'm back to writing again.  Or if I'm not 100% sure of the meaning of a word I plan to use (you know how that is, you think you know what a word means, but when you look it up in the dictionary, you realize that you're wrong), I stop momentarily and look it up.  After every few sentences, or at least at the end of the paragraph, I go back and re-read what I have written to be sure it flows well and says what I want it to say.  If it doesn't, I fix it up right then and there.

I've seen lots and lots of writers in writing groups, and even writing instructors, who say that the best way to write is to go as fast as you can without paying attention to quality, and that when you finish, you will have a "shitty first draft" and that all first drafts are shitty.  But that has never been my way, and when I think about other professions or other craftsmen, such as the person who builds your house or sews your daughter's wedding dress, that's not how we would want them to function, making lots of mistakes and then having to rip them out and do it over.  I've done a fair amount of picking out the mistaken stitches during my years of sewing, but not for lack of try hard to do it right the first time.  So the "shitty first draft" is not inevitable, though I guess it works for some people.

I had a pretty shitty first version of Chapter 5 of C/S.  I wasn't happy with it, I knew that I didn't have a handle on my actor, and when my daughter marked off all the places in the manuscript where the character didn't ring true, there was practically nothing left.  We discussed it on two occasions, and when I finally had my actor nailed, I wrote the chapter pretty steadily and was satisfied with what I produced, as was my daughter.  But that's an unusual example for me.  When I'm done with a chapter, I give it a final read-through, spotting places where the narrative might be a little thin and need beefing up, but I don't think of this as a revision, just adding a little more substance where it's needed.  Or realizing that you've used the same word three times in a row in three sentences.

For C/S there have been two main sticking points. getting a handle on the character of the female lead, and filling in the plot points that link up all the scenes I have already written, either on paper or in my head.  These issues do work themselves out slowly, as I know from experience, but I always have the nagging fear that this time I won't be able to think of anything.  Isn't that stupid?  But the fear keeps creeping back in anyway.  I have to keep telling myself not to pay and attention to it and to have faith that, as I write, the answers to my dilemmas will appear.  Doesn't Dumbledore say that somewhere. "Help will always come at Hogwarts to those who ask for it"?  (Or something like that.)

Thank you for these questions!  You are so kind to ask them here

[prideofprewett]

Vicki! Just popping in to say that I love this story and am looking forward to reading more of it! And maybe I might do this a few more times throughout the month too, since you mentioned needing some gentle nudging and overall enthusiasm and that comes easier to me sometimes than asking thought provoking questions. Especially since you have such a strong grasp of how to do this writing thing and you put a great deal of thought into the process. Even if I don't know where the story is going, I know where the story is going because you have such a firm grasp on what you're doing. That likely doesn't make sense. But I guess what I'm trying to say is, I get this feeling of you know what you're doing (or you pretend marvelously if you don't know) while reading your stories.

But anyway, I hope you make the progress you are looking for this month!

 Courtney

[Oregonian]

Hi, Courtney!   Thank you so much for popping in and for your supportive words.  Of all the stories that I have ever written, this one is the one where I need the most support and encouragement.  I don't know how long it will be, in the end.  Longer than Tiramisu?  Probably.  And there's the scary issue of trying to make the story unique and remarkable in its own right, even though it's set in such an often-used time and place (Hogwarts during the Second Wizarding War).  How to make that fresh and original, how to make it stand out from all the other Hg-WW2 stories?

Melanie @RonsGirlFriday remarked in her post up above, "I have a bad habit myself of being married to my first draft," and I sort of feel that way myself -- the peril of realizing that the sentences you just wrote down have started to solidify like some fast-drying cement and are going to point your scene/story in a direction that you're not sure you want to go.  And there are so many alternatives -- how can you be sure you're choosing the right one?  Well, that's what the cross-out pen is for, and after having had my first klutzy version of Chapter 5 scissored to shreds by my daughter, I do feel less anxiety about just ripping stuff up that doesn't work.  Noelle @inmyownlittlecorner recently wrote about doing heavy-handed surgery on one of her chapters with sharp (metaphorical) scissors, and later finding a place to re-insert a beloved duel scene in a later chapter where it was much better suited.

I got an email today from my son, who said that he hadn't had a chance to read and critique my Chapter 6 yet because things have been a little hectic at his house.  His two little sons (7 and 3.5 years old) have been battling croup, and the home-nursing care of them takes up a lot of his time.  But hopefully within the next few days.  NaNo starts for me in one hour and 24 minutes, and then I can begin writing on Chapter 7, which has been percolating in my head, involving an inevitable issue that needs to be addressed  promptly and which will stretch out as one of the subplots.  Plus doing some sewing for my church's Holiday Bazaar, which is coming up fast (first weekend in December).  I did get all the green tomatoes brought into the house, but didn't dig the rest of the potatoes yet.  The to-do list that never gets cleared out entirely.  Thank you so much for being a cheerleader.

[RonsGirlFriday]

I really enjoyed reading what you said about your writing process and just wanted to say that this:

21 hours ago, Oregonian said:

So my writing is slow because I think about how I want my sentences to fall, and I will work simultaneously on story line and writing quality.  For example, if I can't think of the exact word I want, I stop writing down sentences and take a mental detour to find that word, and then I'm back to writing again.  Or if I'm not 100% sure of the meaning of a word I plan to use (you know how that is, you think you know what a word means, but when you look it up in the dictionary, you realize that you're wrong), I stop momentarily and look it up.  After every few sentences, or at least at the end of the paragraph, I go back and re-read what I have written to be sure it flows well and says what I want it to say.  If it doesn't, I fix it up right then and there.

is EXACTLY how I write! If I get to a point where I have to -- for example -- name a book or a restaurant or something in the story, I sit there thinking about it forever and don't keep writing until I have it. I've tried doing that thing where I just put a [PLACEHOLDER] in the text and keep going and it never sticks for me.

Good luck with your project!