Act II: more keeper than scrapper?!
My 2013 New Year’s resolution / project was to focus on a writing project — revision, specifically, since my creative spark remains a barely-glowing ember after the past couple of years.
On January 1st I pulled my very first draft of my very first completed novel from its cobwebby e-shelf to run it through the HTRYN [affiliate link] course. Though I’ve already completed the course once, I figured I needed the structure of the Lessons and my naive lil’ manuscript certainly would need the Major Evaluation (Lessons 1-8 or so) before the Deconstruction phase.
This revision project was just what I needed… at the time.
Lesson One launches the initial process of accepting what went wrong (and right! don’t forget the good stuff!) in the first draft. I managed 250/400 pages, and then new personal dramas forced it aside.
Plus, to be perfectly honest, I was bored with it. The first act was really exciting! (yay!!) But, it wrapped up all nice and neat when my characters headed out to sea (yes, literally). The characters were boring and I told sooooo much via journal entries and reflections rather than immersed the reader in scene action. Blech.
But my printer is connected once again. My guest room / temp office is nice ‘n’ cozy and it’s been spring-blustery outside.
My dreams are perking up.
Thoughts of writing niggle as I revive my old blog posts.
And I’ve just read through 30 more pages that might just be more keepers than scrappers.