Remember this post? Recently I mentioned that I had a decision to make about whether or not to write a couple books in a series. Well, the decision has been made and I’ve decided not to to write the books and instead to focus on my own work for now. I feel good about the decision and I’m looking forward to having only one, singular writing goal now.
The email from my agent (which you can read about in this post) came the day after I turned down the project. How’s that for validation?
We’re now at the 11 day mark and it’s feeling more than a little overwhelming. I’ve gotten great feedback from my crit partners on the first three chapters. This weekend I got to revising the 5th chapter before deciding I wanted to go ahead and fix the three chapters that needed some work. So, today I’m in the middle of tackling Chapter 1-3 revisions.
Here’s my basic revision to-do list for this afternoon:
Ch. 1: Clarify MC’s initial goal, clarify her relationship to 2 different characters in first scene; clarify conflict between two sets of characters; expand fight scene; add additional location to break up monotony w/in chase scene; revise parts where action scenes sound too literary and lose their immediacy
Good news: much of this is clarification and in those instances a few sentences here and there can go a long way; the voice seems to be working as well as the writing itself, so no real fixes there
Ch. 2: Fix the beginning and end of chapter which currently suffer from too much inner monologue, delete short back story that happened in ch.1 and add it in ch. 1 somewhere making it happen on screen, think about deleting flashback, more momentum in the ending
Good news: I know a way to make the beginning of the chapter at least more fun
Ch. 3: cry because I have to delete about half of it, make MC more active than reactive; adjust purpose of chapter to fit with MC’s overall goal; think about how to get more young characters in w/out messing up plot
Good news: I have one scene I’m really happy with in here that I can use
Who knows how long that will take, but I have a pretty ambitious goal for the day. Finish revising the first 100 pages! So that really leaves just about 50-ish more + the three chapter revisions I’ve mentioned above. But I need to get those sent off to CPs and start writing forward again this week.
Thanks for the encouragement on my “Fourteen Days” post. I’m trying to take baby steps. One thing at a time. Continue to send love and words of advice. My sweet friend, Kelley, is taking care of the food part today.
Keep up the good work! Sounds like you have very clearly defined goals for what you’d like to improve, which in my opinion is at least half the battle (okay, maybe it’s more 1/4 of the battle, but it’s still a big deal) You’ll get it done!