IWSG

I remember my March IWSG (not ISWG (;) where I boldly announced I'd get my edits finished before the A-Z challenge in April. 

HA! 

Jokes on me because it's almost mid-June and guess what? I'm still doing edits. For the whole month of April and May I didn't touch my wip. I know, how scandalous of me. Bad, bad writer! By the end of May, I found the more I ignored my wip, the easier it was to ignore, make up excuses, procrastinate, and feel even more insecure about it--until last weekend. 

A good friend of mine is an artist. She paints using different kinds of medium and it's amazing how talented she is. Anyway, she was leaving town with her family for the weekend and she offered her house up to me as my very own writer's cave for a whole day. That meant a whole day of uninterrupted writing, no distractions, no telephone, no internet, no little people, no big people, no pets, no gardening, no laundry, no cooking, no housework--just hours and hours of writing. I scrambled to get myself organized on the home front then packed my stuff up that morning, and spent the day at her house. It turned out to be an amazing day and one of the best gifts I've received in a long time.  But what's even better is that I made real progress with my wip and edits. Don't get me wrong, I'm still suffering through them, but I can see the finish line and guess what? I fell in love with the story all over again. Having that amount of alone time with my wip rekindled a spark that I hadn't felt in a while. 

So my point with today's post is this: sometimes, all it takes is a change of scenery and a few uninterrupted hours with your wip to have a breakthrough that'll bring you closer to the finish line. 

Stepping Back to Move Forward

Three months ago, I shipped a printed copy of my manuscript to my editor. I was a little stressed about mailing it . . . okay, a lot stressed. But at the same time, so relieved. I had reached that place where I had done so many rewrites, revisions, changes, etc, that I couldn't see the story anymore. Is this chapter crap or should it stay? What about the beginning, is it better now or before? I couldn't say and was unable to make a decision or even have an opinion about my writing. I had grown sick of my story and it was time to take a break. 

A few days ago, I received a package. Inside was my manuscript with my editor's notes, comments, suggestions and most importantly, her encouragement. <3 I dove back in, page by page, and realized a good break was exactly what I needed. Five chapters into my edits, and I'm in love with my story all over again. I'm now embracing this rekindled excitement and I'm determined to get this wip finished and ready for querying before April. 

It will be done. 

***

How about you guys? Ever get to this point? What helped 'bring back that lovin' feeling?' (; 

IWSG: It's Huge

I got to the point last month where I think I lost faith in my ms. The closer I got to finishing the edits, the more intimidating the whole thing became. And then I did something I'd never done before. I printed the whole document out (minus the last chapter which is still in the hands of my editor). It took several minutes to print the 350 page document and when it was done, I just looked at it (0_0) not sure what the hell to do next. I'd never seen this much of my ms in physical print before and kept thinking, "It's HUGE."

So after the initial shock wore off and a glass of...never mind, I decided I better do something with it since a few hundred trees  sacrificed their lives to birth my first draft. Cue the heavy artillery: pens of varying colors, music,  and lots and lots of colored sticky notes. I started by tagging each chapter, realized I stopped chapter headings at 16 for no apparent reason, and then began to reread from the begining. It's amazing the things that catch your attention when you read your ms on a different medium. It's not the same and that got me excited again. And when I get excited, I set goals for myself. I did this last month with mixed results (read: total disaster). But now the kids are back in school and my theory is I should have enough time to yield better results by the end of September. Right? Absolutely.

September goals:

1. Finish making all minor adjustments to ms
2. Finish editing the last chapter as soon as I get feedback (4 days to complete edits tops)
3. RUN 3 times / week Plus 1 hour / week of Sport Chanbara (I'll be taking my first Chanbara class tomorrow evening so send me some positive vibes and pain killers and hope to make it out alive... :P  )
4. Finish revising my practice query letter (possibly send it to Matthew for a critique at the QQQE....maybe....I'm such a cluck, cluck, chicken)
5. Send completed second draft to my editor who I'm convinced has super powers  
6. Read, read, read. (I totally fell behind on reading last month. Part of it was traveling and part of it was reading e-books on my computer which is a pain, literally.) 
7. Keep visiting blogs, and posting 3 times / week
8. Get to sleep by 1 am. I'm bumping this up an hour from last month because I'm exhausted.

Well, there it is. 

September, bring in on like Donkey Kong!

I told you it was huge.
Also, tub of Nutella not pictured.