Saturday, March 25, 2006

GH and Breakout Novel

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later. - Confucius

First off, I want to send a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to all of the Golden Heart finalists -- but especially to Mary over at the Bandwagon. Well done, everyone!

The past few days, I've been contemplating Camilla's Critters. I have a pretty big plot change that needs to be edited into the existing manuscript, but the first draft isn't quite finished either. I wondered... should I edit or should I finish? To many of you, this may be a no-brainer, but I was perplexed.

Yesterday, I decided to finish the first draft. I'd like to say that I did -- but I have a good 15,000 words to go. What I managed to accomplish, however, was about 2500 words. A good day. If I can write at least 1000 words a day (not an impossibility if I focus -- after all, I did win NaNo), I'll have the first draft done by the beginning of April, and then I can hunker down and edit so that I can get the entire thing over to poor Darcy, who certainly must think I'm the biggest flake EVER.

Also, I'm trying to work through the "Writing the Breakout Novel" workbook, and know several of you are also doing the same. I'm entertaining the thought of setting up a Yahoo group to share our experiences, help keep us accountable, but not have it formal. Maybe post any problems or epiphany's we've had, post the occasional lesson (especially if we'd like a little help), but I have a vision of a guilt free group. Anybody out there game? No pressure, no guilt, just good folks. Many of you have my email address (if not, post a comment here, and I'll get back to you) -- I'd like to hear what you think. Anyone, anyone?

4 comments:

Ceri Hebert said...

I actually don't have your email address. I'm ready to join up. I'm in the editing phase of my Nano manuscript. Is this workbook for wips in progress or can it be used for editing?

I am definitely the kind of writer who often goes back and edits while I write. Its probably not the right way to do it, but its just me (a true Pantser through and through).

Charity Tahmaseb said...

Do you have it set up? This is what I was thinking of too. Not so much a study group but an informal one where we can chat about what it is Maass is driving at (and not always taking it at face value, either).

I haven't even started on the workbook. I was in a training class this week but hope to do a little work this weekend.

Ceri Hebert said...

I haven't gotten more than a few pages into my workbook either. I just picked up last night.

Informal is good.

MJFredrick said...

Thanks, Marianne!

Workbook, huh? sounds scary.