done, Done, DONE!

I'm done, done, done with my stinky first draft! And it's not as bad as I thought, but there are some mega plot problems to be fixed. A couple of things don't make sense, and it's not a matter of shoring up motivation because there isn't any! Or there isn't any motivation that makes sense. But I'm noodling it around in my head and trust that the answers will come.

I'm trying to take a break from it--do some reading, for pleasure as well as some writing books. Then I'll dive into the rewrite. It's a little scary. You have this vision in your head that you try to put down in your first draft. You *know* it's not working but you console yourself with the fact that you can nail it in your revision. But can you? What if you can't?

Three Scenes, People!

I am about three scenes from The End--give or take a few. I just got back from a walk with the dog (gorgeous day here in Michigan) during which I ran through those scenes in my head. They should be pretty easy to write. Fun, too. Then I can sink my teeth into the rewrite.

I have "Don't Murder Your Mystery" by Chris Roerden on my desk to be read. I hope to apply her tips and tricks to my rewrite. I will need to put the manuscript away for a week or two anyway to gain some distance. Then I want to print it out and read it through. I'm sure I've forgotten entire scenes!

I know it needs some work from an organizational standpoint. And I'll have to be sure to wrap up all subplots and dangling clues. And give my main character a personality. Ha!

Fun stuff ahead!

Live & Learn

I've been thinking about my goals for this new year, 2009. I don't want to make any resolutions--they always come across as negative and things you're *not* going to do like smoke or overeat. No, I think goals are much more motivating.

One goal is definitely to finish my cozy mystery manuscript, make revisions and get it circulating with agents. And the sooner the better.

My other goal is to learn. I want to take some good books off my shelf and really study them--do the whole underline in different colored magic markers thing. I want to try "modeling" as described in Elizabeth Lyons' book Manuscript Makeover. And writing riffs from the same volume.

Once and for all I want to see, inside out, how accomplished authors put their books together. Then I'm going to use that knowledge to write another one of my own.

Starting Over

Last week was something of a wash. My writing coach and I exchange our goals at the beginning of the week and then review them to see how we've done at the end of the week. Unfortunately I did not accomplish any of my goals.

On the other hand, I did stop to do some more background work--fixing plot problems, doing character sketches, etc. I think it is going to make for a stronger story. It means starting over, but there are bit and pieces I can keep.

I hope this isn't my internal editor's way to getting me to stop and smell the revisions! I started this determined to push forward without going back to edit.