New Writing Challenge

Good idea, Blue Bird. I thought the idea of having a challenge thread was a good one, and kept people motivated, but it was hard to keep it on track. Maybe we can keep this one devoted just to goals and challenges.



That said, I'll start off with goal for the next week: going through my manuscript, page by page and line by line, cutting anything I can to get to the ending I want. It's slow going, so I can only manage one to two chapters a day. Thus far, I'm through chapter 4 so I have a long way to go.

We've sopped up the last of the mud in the family room.

We've moved all the cardboard boxes in the garage to higher ground.

We've cleared mud all the storm drains in the back yard, in anticipation of yet another heavy storm, which is expected to arrive later this morning.

I'm a little rattled by the prospects, so I've rescheduled my singing lesson for next Wednesday. And I'm working from my laptop, so as to keep my eye on the French doors, the entry point of last night's leak.

On the bright side, I'm loving the cozy cloud cover and cooler weather. I get restless when the rain lasts for months on end, but in short spells, it's refreshing. Perhaps it'll inspire me to polish another chapter or two to take to my writing group. Assuming, of course, that SoCal doesn't float away between now and tomorrow night.

I'll be writing all day and into the evening. Anyone out there want to join me?

Newport2Newport said:

We've sopped up the last of the mud in the family room.

We've moved all the cardboard boxes in the garage to higher ground.

We've cleared mud all the storm drains in the back yard, in anticipation of yet another heavy storm, which is expected to arrive later this morning.

I'm a little rattled by the prospects, so I've rescheduled my singing lesson for next Wednesday. And I'm working from my laptop, so as to keep my eye on the French doors, the entry point of last night's leak.

On the bright side, I'm loving the cozy cloud cover and cooler weather. I get restless when the rain lasts for months on end, but in short spells, it's refreshing. Perhaps it'll inspire me to polish another chapter or two to take to my writing group. Assuming, of course, that SoCal doesn't float away between now and tomorrow night.

I'll be writing all day and into the evening. Anyone out there want to join me?

Click to expand...

Journal it, Newport! Fodder for a story!

I've been at it all day. Got tired of the line-by-line cutting and wrote my happy ending. Just finding it was a big hurdle. Back to the line-by-line for maybe an hour or two this evening, after a dinner break. Hope to get through chapter 7.

Chrisla and Newport It is great to see you back. I missed you. It sounds like you are really cruising along Chrisla. Congrats on that!
Newport it sounds like you had some interesting times recently. Sorry about the mud.

I will be editing things tonight.

Got caught up in a Lee Child novel last night and didn't get back to my editing. That may be a good thing--to step away for a bit. I gave a little more thought to my ending, and want to work on that today, to make sure it fits in seamlessly. Then I'll go back to the condensing.

How are the rest of you progressing?

Writing can be exhaustive for many reasons, not just the formation of words, but of their meaning to you, the stress of being understood in the way they understand.

nothing wrong with a bit of 'you' time. we all take a break for whatever period. remember you are still drained from that cold.

don't be so hard on yourself

hi everyone else

Seams

Chrisla I am actually glad to hear that you got caught up in something for awhile. You have been working very hard and you deserve some time away from it.

Red Bird you have been pushing yourself insanely hard and need to give yourself a break.

Seams makes a very good point. Mental and emotional work is exhausting. It takes a lot of real life energy to keep those thoughts and emotions firing. Haha And don't even get me started on the stress of working to be understood.

But so often when I'm winding down, inspiration hits: that perfect phrase I may not get right if I wait until tomorrow, the fix that might just work in a troublesome paragraph, or even a story idea. So I find myself back at my desk.

I watched the news, Newport, what's your status? Hope you didn't have to evacuate.

Got through three chapters of cutting and editing today; very good progress, besides polishing my ending. I'm going to be brave and shoot for three more tomorrow, 11 through 13.

I also saw the news about the issues in California and thought I must have been living in a cave the past few days. I saw Newport's comment about cleaning up the last of some muddy water but I had no idea--I was busy dealing with my own water issues.
Newport, how are you? Please tell us you're OK, if you can.

Flooding appears to be mostly on the coast and along the waterways. Evacuations are more in the foothills, due to mud slides. I don't know where in Orange County Newport lives. He may well be damp but safe.

Anyway, to try to keep this thread on track--I got up early this morning and got through those three chapters by noon. Goal achieved. I think I'll work on something else for the rest of the day, so I don't burn myself out, and shoot for chapters 14-16 tomorrow!

okay, keep the group support going

Okay, Chrisla. You found me. I was slacking on my Absolute Write participation. There are so many fellow bloggers I should be visiting regularly, and I don't even try. Between writing, day job, social networking, planning workshops, (hey speaking of which I'm giving a free one next week at www.namw.org called "Why write a story of an ordinary life.") Did I forget anything? Oh, right. Sleep!

Anyway, I will tell you my saga and continue to offer my support to this little community we are building here. So here's my tale. My memoir has gone through about 3 revisions. (the last one thanks to prodding on this forum - thank you!)

I love the latest round, but of course there are flaws, the most serious of which is that I don't know my elevator speech yet. That's awful, I know, but I have an image in my mind, and I haven't found the words for it yet.

So I'm bringing small pieces of the manuscript to my critiique groups and learning a lot from them about what a reader wants to see in a scene. And meanwhile, I'm pouring work/time/energy into my other 3 (!) nonfiction manuscripts about memoir.

Okay, "enough about me." By the way, that's the title of a great memoir by Jancee Dunn. Oh, and I'm reading Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong. It does a lot more "telling" than the purists might appreciate but I'm loving it.

Jerry

Ah, yes, those synopses--elevator or otherwise--are enough to bring Steinbeck to his knees. But, then, I'll bet he didn't have to write any. I think this is one of those new, improved tortures.

Sounds like you've been busy, Jerry, even though we haven't heard from you. I'm hoping we can keep this thread on track for goals and encouragement only, but it's hard to do.

I keep plowing away on this last edit, but am afraid I'm burning myself out. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. And I know I have to keep at it, because I won't get much writing time in this week. With the new edits, I'm setting a goal of three chapters by the end of the week, which should take me through chapter 19.

I will be writing a new blog post today then moving onto the Detour piece again. I had hoped that it would be a piece to stand alone outside of the MS so that I could just practice on it. I am finding however that avoiding the rest of the story underneath was creating bumps. Now I must work on figuring out how to put that in without derailing that bit of story. I could avoid it but I think it is a very good exercise to hammer it out and that was the entire point of choosing this particular bit of story to begin with.

I think I've burned out for the day, with only one chapter down, but I didn't get a lot of writing time in. Probably none tomorrow. I'm glad to see the rest of you hard at it.

No real problems with the tags, Red Bird. It's just that when I ran a search for the word "read," I sometimes found too many of them in a scene and had to go back and do a little rewriting.

No writing goals for tomorrow, but hope to clear another chapter of edits (Chapter 18) by Wednesday. Maybe a day away from my desk will regenerate me. . .

I'm a little ahead. Worked late last night, and pared down another chapter. Seems like a never-ending process. Write, edit, polish, then cut. I think I have them in the wrong order!

Bluegate said:

I also saw the news about the issues in California and thought I must have been living in a cave the past few days. I saw Newport's comment about cleaning up the last of some muddy water but I had no idea--I was busy dealing with my own water issues.
Newport, how are you? Please tell us you're OK, if you can.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Bluegate, for your concern! We're drying out, and other than a few intermittent rainstorms, it looks like sunnier skies ahead.