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I am really enjoying reading Sandra Scofield’s The Last Draft. It feels positive and warm and makes me think I can really do this thing. And it led me to a lightbulb moment. While reading, I realized that I am always trying to rush through the new things I try. I try to grab the highlights and put them to use because I feel like I don’t have time to take things slowly and do them thoroughly.

This is something I’ve known, at least semi-consciously. But today for some reason it became clear and was suddenly right in my face. I need to slow down. I need to do this work with attention and awareness and no rushing. I need to do it like a nice slow stretch in the morning. I need to commit.

So, new goals for the next while. I’m going to actually do the exercises–all of the exercises–in The Last Draft. A little at a time. Actually writing them down in my novel notebook. I’m going to do this as fully as I can and see what I can do for my story. No more rushing. No more feeling like I don’t have enough time–all of these time limits and constraints are things I’ve put on myself. I will take the time it needs. I will see the experiment through to the end. Then I will take the parts that work best for me and move forward. But first I’m going to try all the parts.

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I am discovering that revision of a long piece is an entirely different creature than revising a short story or writing new words. And I have to give myself time to learn this and make mistakes and try again. So I’m throwing the idea of time schedules out the window for now. My goal is to work on this regularly, interspersed with days of doing writing practice so that I feel like I’m still getting writing done. Because this revision thing, while necessary for writing,does not feel to me like getting writing done.

I picked up a new book yesterday to help me learn this revision thing: The Last Draft by Sandra Scofield. My first impression is that the first section of the book, which is more than half the book, is more educational and less specific to working on a particular manuscript. Skimming through it at the bookstore I saw a lot in there that I think I can make use of, so I’m looking forward to digging in further.

That’s about it for the moment. I’m still plugging away at this revision and am determined to figure out how to do this with a long story. Looking forward to seeing what I learn from my new book–I’ll keep you posted.

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I feel like I’m moving a bit. I’ve been doing a lot of writing practice and a lot of contemplating about my revisions, and I think I’m starting to see some story shapes. I still don’t quite know what I’m doing, but I don’t feel like I’m going to be stuck forever, so something must be shifting. I am going to proceed as I have been, although I’m going to make a push to read and review some of my resources this week to stir my ideas.

I’m also thinking of something possibly a little goofy. When I revise a short story, I just start retyping it. What if, when I finish marking off the scenes in the story, I just start retyping each one? I don’t know if that will make any of the deeper changes that I need, though. That might just tighten up the language and make it prettier. And while that’s not awful, that’s not all I need. Still, I’m thinking about this and wondering if it would be useful. We’ll see.

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Lately things seem to be moving slowly, and sometimes not at all. Everything seems to be having glitches and setbacks and oddities. This post, for instance…this is take three because when I add the photo it messes up the alignment and puts all of the text above the image no matter what I do.

I almost didn’t write a post to check in for ROW80. I thought about just checking in on the Facebook page, but I haven’t posted here in a bit, so I really thought I should. And way past the time when the post should have been done, I am still fighting with my layout.

Writing is mostly writing practice and reading through downloads and things from classes I’ve taken, looking at books I have, stuff like that. I’m still trying to get a feel for how to approach a novel-length revision.

This is a lot different than a short story. I can hold an entire short story in my mind. Revisions involve making notes on the printed text and then retyping the story making changes as I go. Sometimes it just involves retyping because I can’t retype without changing things.

I’m not pushing myself to work on a schedule right now. I feel like I’m in a learning phase, so I’m just moseying along. I wish I didn’t keep hitting these weird sticky spots, though. I’d love it if things would just go smoothly, thank you very much and I hope there’s someone/thing out there listening!

Time for another ROW80 check-in already! This week has been a little slow for writing work because I had a lot of other things going on, but I’ve done some character journals and really feel like I finally know these people in my story. I’m trying not to be dismayed at how much I’m going to need to change to make them show up on the page now. At least I have solid characters to do that work with, right?

I’ve been reading the plotting book, too. One of the things I have always liked about Holly Lisle’s writing about writing is how it makes me feel like I can do this thing. She doesn’t act like if you follow certain steps things will be easy. She acknowledges that there will be plenty of hard parts, but she still makes it all sound so doable. I love that!

This week I’m going to finish at least reading through the rest of the character course. I want to see if anything else pops up for me from reading it. Right now I feel like I know enough about my characters to do a better job of telling their story. So I’m going to get my index cards and sticky notes ready, print out “Haunt” as it stands right now, and get ready for some revisions. Feeling almost ready for that now.

Stage two. STAGE TWO! Can you believe it? I wrote a book. A whole book, all the way to the conclusion!

I think I’m more excited now than I was last week. It’s finally really sinking in, and my excitement has grown. This thing is finished! It is complete enough to be doing revisions. I had actually given up on getting here. I have had so many attempts that I never finished. I kind of thought that was my thing–think of a story, do some planning, write some of it, move on to the next. But now I have actually completed a novel (okay, novella for now).

I gave myself a couple of days off, and now I am following my plan and reading at least four pages a day and making notes. I’m trying to not think about how I will fix the things I’m making notes on. It’s working some of the time.

I was a little worried that I would have a hard time keeping on the four-page schedule, but so far I’m finding it pretty easy. I even did six pages yesterday. I think I really will be finished with this part by the end of the year. And I’m going to wait until this part is finished before I plan for what comes next. Small steps, small steps!