Story Work

Story Work 2

A very quick ROW80 check-in.  I’m still recovering from a fabulous weekend at the Willamette Writers Conference.

My head is so full of story, ways to tell stories, ways to plan stories, ways to make it better.  The spark from being around so many other writers and learning so much craft in such a short time is incredible.  (I did some presenting at the conference, too.  Here’s the blog post I wrote about that.

Two particularly fabulous things for my own WIP came from the weekend.  First, I took a workshop on loglines and reworked mine and feel like I really got it right.  I can see the story so much more clearly now.

The other thing that popped up for my story is that I’m watering things down.  I’m trying to be balanced and do story work and also writing practice, and what’s happening right now is that I’m not really getting any good work done on either front.  So for right now I’m going to turn all my focus to Blood of the Mist.  (Truthfully I’ll probably still do a little writing practice off and on because I always do, I’m just not going to focus on it right now and make a big thing of it.)

I’m going to read through what I already have a couple of times.  Right now I’m reading through and marking all of the character and place names so I can create notes for each one and reconnect with them.  Then I’m going to read through and make scene notes.  After the two read-throughs are done, I’m going to do a loose plot of the whole thing, and then I’m going to finish the first draft.

I don’t expect to get all of this done during this round, but I don’t really know for sure how long it will take.  I only know that I really want to finish this story, so that’s where I’m going to turn my attention.

I think I should be able to get through the first reading and character notes by next week’s check-in.  Hopefully that’s what I’ll be telling you about next time.  See you then!

4 thoughts on “Story Work

  1. How exciting! And I just did my logline too–it’s not perfect, but it feels right for right now. I think you’re making the right choice concentrating on this story now. Good luck

    • Thank you, Amy! Perfect doesn’t exist. If we find what’s right, at least for the moment, we have what we need. I love having a logline as I’m going through reading and note taking. It’s helping so much in deciding what needs to be changed or removed.

      Good luck to you, too!

  2. Sounds exciting. I love that feeling of “Oh My God, I can totally do this”. Been getting that more and more lately.

    Here’s to an awesome rest of the week! 🙂

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