Well, a little while ago I told the Frog that I was thinking of applying for a wip grant, but the only problem was that I needed to write the wip first. The Frog looked at me and asked me how I planned to do that when I couldn't even manage writing one day a week. The guy had a point, even if it did rather annoy me at the time.
So, when Lia Keyes who runs the Facebook SCBWI fan page mentioned that I was doing NaNo I thought to myself 'Mmm, why not? How hard can it be to write 1,667 words a day?' Well, let me tell you that after thirteen and a half hour days, the thought of sitting at the laptop and churning out two words was occasionally too much. In the end there was only three days when I didn't pen a word, today being one of them because I've FINISHED. Thankfully November in France is blessed with two national holidays, which helped enormously. The Frog and bubba also helped by braving the rain and tootling off for a weekend.
The Regional Advisor of the France chapter of SCBWI suggested that I organise some write-ins. In the end I was the only SCBWI member that attended the write-ins I organised. It was kind of weird meeting up with a bunch of strangers every week, but it was kind of sweet comparing word counts and sharing biscuits and tap tapping away. There was one week where the group was a little chatty, but on the whole I tended to churn out a good 2,000 words each Sunday, which kept me good for the light word days during the week,
So, now I have this thing in a red plastic folder and I've been reading it. I can see the bits where I was totally exhausted -lots of telling, not showing. I've done what I'm good at, the dialogue is pretty good, the story is pretty exciting, if I say so myself. But it's the skeleton of a book. I need to slow down, describe settings and build the characters a little before I launch into the action.
I think, I've also decided to cut a character, but I'm not sure. Well, I'm almost a 100% sure that I need to cut the character, but he's moved the plot along in ways that are important. The thing is that if I cut him, I need to try and work out how to move the plot along in the way I want to. Plus, the scenes he's in are quite good, I like them, but oooh.
So...
Today Ella is on the Timaeus. She's skipped school (naughty girl), but she's pretty happy, unsure of how things are going to pan out, but pretty happy.
Leo is also on the Timaeus and he is like the cat that got the cream. He came, he saw and he did what he meant to do (with lots of help from his friends, of course).
And Will is ... we don't really need to know what he's doing, do we? Whatever it is, I assure you he's enjoying it.
My word count is at 50,454 words and I am a ...
Check me out here.
4 comments:
Well done you! Now begins the hard bit... Rewriting! :-) Have fun!
Tell me about it. I've already re-written the opening from a different point of view. i basically need to slow the beginning right down and build up the relationship between my MC and the friend she is going to help and...
When do I get some hard critiquing done? Now or the next round? I was thinking of giving it to a colleague with the questions that I have now on this read through, making the changes and then critiquing?
Congratulations!
I haven't read through mine yet. Thought I'd leave it for a while and get on with finishing my current WIP.
Good luck with the rewriting.
Well done, look forward to reading the finished draft. :O)
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