Back at the beginning of summer, I participated in Bess Weatherby’s Summer in the City Blogfest. I set my goals for the summer down in black and white. Or whatever colors my blog is. But it’s there. Anyway, in black is my original goal and in red is how I actually did.
Goals
1. Finish first draft current WIP. I'm at ~30K and expect to add another 30K--at least.
Got this one down, plus another ten thousand words.
2. Do the first draft sweep. By that I mean go through the above WIP and flesh out areas I kind of skipped over.
I did most of this, but there are still a few areas that need work. Luckily, that’s what rewrites are for.
3. Analyze the WIP with a scene by scene breakdown. This is usually when I cut stuff and really analyze the plot. Is it going the way I want it to? Are the characters actually developing and not just "reading lines"? I know most people do this before they write the book. But I'm a pantser!
About halfway done. Unfortunately, this book took a lot longer to write than I expected. It’s not the book’s fault. Just bad timing in other areas of my life.
4. Grammar and word check! That's always a painful experience. I go through it line by line for overused words. 'Just' is the worst offender, but some, so and really tend to appear all too often.
Started, but as I mentioned in another post [http://jefritz.blogspot.com/2011/08/back.html], I have a lot of words.
5. Read aloud. This usually takes the longest, but I should be able to get through it by the end of summer. I think.
Complete!
6. Send it out for critiques! I hope my friends will be patient with me...
Since I haven’t finished three and four, I haven’t done this yet. Plus, I have to find more beta readers and critiquers.
7. Go back to my last WIP and rewrite! Add that storyline I always meant to. Then ship it out for more critiques/beta reading, which it sorely needs.
Not yet. That one is going on the back burner until I do more on this one.
8. Try to visit and comment on blogs more. I don't like to comment unless I have something interesting to say. So I guess I'll have to think up more interesting things!
This I did! There were a few days when I let it go, but I made an earnest effort to meet more people (hello Campaigners!) and I’m trying not to forget old friends.
In all, I only got about half of what I wanted to done. It was a tough summer and I’m satisfied that I did as much (well, almost as much ;) as I could. There are times when you have to go slow or you don’t go at all.
So, how was your summer? Did you write/edit?
Good job!! I think you did great. :-)
ReplyDeleteLike you say, sometimes we underestimate the time we need, and bad timing in other areas of life can slow us down.
ReplyDeleteI've been writing all summer, and feel close to the end of it.
Sounds to me like you got a lot done. Sometimes our goals are just a little beyond our reach!
ReplyDeleteI've gotten a lot of writing and other goals done this summer, including revising 3 short stories, doing a conflict and structure analysis on my fantasy manuscript (and finding a lot of stuff that I want to improve,) and doing lots of critiques for other writers!
Oh my, I had joined Bess Weatherby's Summer in the City blogfest and I completely forgot about it till now! Thanks for the reminder. About time I revisited my summer goals, too!
ReplyDeleteI like your system for first analyzing your plot with a scene by scene breakdown, then the grammar check, then the reading-it-outloud. I often forget to read outloud, its so important though.