The writing challenge that knows you have a life.
I have better days on the mind this week. Bright sunny days with lemonade to quench the thirst. Oh, there’s a good thought. Let me just stay right there for a minute.
Thanks.
As I worked through my WIP this week and prepared for yet another snow storm, I walked right into a road block, several in fact. This dang WIP doesn’t want a happy ending.
Instead of forcing it to happen, I stepped back and went right to the beginning. I’ve now completed an editing pass on the first five chapters and it feels like I’m re-meeting my characters. I love these two. Their passion and fears are right there on the page. I love this story. I’m hoping by the time I finish this editing pass, I’ll be able to walk them right into their happy ending.
It will happen and so will that sunny day and the big glass of lemonade.
The Goals – week-4 results
- Spend at least 1-hour a day with my characters- done. 🙂
- Daily progress in writing craft, word count, editing, and/or plotting- done I added 1k while editing this week, but I also deleted 2k. Ouch!
- Take care of and be kind to myself (start w/ a relaxing ritual and daily breaks from technology)– done on all accounts, but I could have done better. My relaxing morning ritual is working and my little one is trying to get used to it. He’ll get there. I did take breaks from technology this week, but I needed more. This week my volunteer demands will lessen and I plan on taking advantage of the extra time. I need to work smart, not hard.
My stop on the web you might have missed this week:
S.J. Maylee 
Sounds like a great week to me! Don’t worry about the negative words–that’s just editing not negative writing. Two totally different things. Off to check out your interview now. 🙂
You’re so right. This WIP really needs the sharp edge of my editing hammer. There will probably be another cut like that this week. Thanks for reading my interview *shakes pom pons* 🙂
I’m glad life was handing your characters lemons and not you, because that way, you can change it! A lot of times, we get blocked because we took a wrong turn somewhere, so backing up is the way to fix that. Good luck with it, and have fun!
You’re absolutely right, Jennette. My heroine is a tricky one and I want to make sure I get her motivation right. I’ve fixed many things in this rework too. So, that’s good. Thank you for the encouragement and I will try and enjoy getting her right on the page.
I’ve had those “one step forward, two steps back” weeks myself. You still had a good week.
Thanks, John. The WIP is cleaner for it. So that’s good. Hope you have a good week.
Isn’t that deleting so hard? But I always feel better after a while when I go back through the chapter and see how much tighter and better it reads. I also like that you stepped back and reminded yourself where these characters want to go. In the WIP I’m working on now, I recently realized from the opening chapters that my MC was less interested in one longing she’d voiced and far more interested in a deeper one she hadn’t voiced. It was exactly what I needed to know to hone in on the important stuff and beef up the story.
Congrats on getting your goals done. I hope this is a banner week for you! Go, #TeamJSJ!