Work in Progress Wednesday #005

Yay, it's time again for the best part of Wednesday, talking about my wip.

I think this past week I only wrote on two days. But, one of those days was Sunday when I met up with Carolyn, and I put in an hour and 20 minutes of editing. Whoo hoo! I'm now on p. 99 of 192, which means I did 20 pages last week. Um, slow but steady?

I did take all of your advice (thanks!) and keep going with the read-through, taking notes and getting back into the story. This novel has three main characters, though two are more main than the one, and one of those I had considered my main main. (Um, confused yet?) But now I am wondering if the youngest character could be the main main. She was really easy to write, and I feel like her scenes are more developed and emotionally powerful than the other two characters' scenes. I guess that is another thing for me to ponder in the back of my mind.

And, I thought about how with my middle character I can further explore and develop a relationship he has a with a long-time neighborhood friend, who happens to be a girl... (ow! ow!)

Anyway, I have many options for exciting subplots , and it's just nice to know I didn't write myself into any holes, back in the day.

Kate today talked about levels of rewrites, and I'd say my novel is in it's third stage. Of course there was the first draft (which is the zero stage), which I wrote over a period of... (counting on fingers) 9 months (like a baby!), and then in the last 2-3 weeks before it was due was the 1st stage of the rewrite, where I put it all together, read it, cut it all down, and reorganized it. Then, because I had a deadline, I quickly went through the 2nd stage of the draft, filling in holes and polishing it off because it had to look like a real novel in order to get a good grade. And that I accomplished over a 3-day weekend. I stayed at my boyfriend's house (who later became my husband) and locked myself in a tiny room and wrote and cut and fixed and listened to every song on my computer a million times, and then the night before it was due I was in the Writing Center on campus till, I don't know, 5am, reading through all 180-ish pages, checking for typos. I brought it to the copy center as soon as it opened, where I and other seniors talked about how happy and exhausted and proud of ourselves we were. Then I turned it in, smiling deliriously, then went to class, and later that night we all went down to the bar, and I don't remember what happened after that.


Ahh, the memories. Actually, it makes me really happy to remember that story, and all the work I put into the novel, and that I actually got it done on time, and I got an A! (whee) And I really liked my story that day I turned it in, and the three advisors who read it said good things about it, and some of my friends and my sister read it, and they liked it. I think that is my favorite part about writing. Sharing it and seeing what others think. Even if I don't get published someday, I hope to always have a few good critiquing buddies around.

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about levels/layers/stages of rewriting. So, but I consider myself in stage 3 now, as I go back over that quickly-put-together-and-polished draft and fill it out to be the better novel it was always meant to be. I suppose stage 4 will be writing/rewriting the bits I'm making notes on now.

I love this WIP Wednesday thing! Reading others' blogs makes their writing lives seem glamorous, and taking a moment each week to evaluate my own writing process reminds me why I have not given up on writing.