Thanks for describing this process with your first 50 pages, Jami, and also the encouragement. I am at the end of a long revision process that included revising my query letter and synopsis. Am I ready? Yes. Maybe. I'm going for it.
Not quite the same, but have been feeling lately that my really great idea for a story was somehow flat. And it is. Both great and also flat. So now I’m thinking I need to build this great idea into something else, and while I’m struggling a little with what that will be, I know it will elevate the idea, breathe life into it, and make it whole.
This is really inspiring to me, so that I get back to work. When I did #1000 words, I finished for the first time ever...and kept going. Then I missed a day at the end of June, then a few days, and then I lost my way. I'm starting back on Monday, though, bc my husband is going to be occupied elsewhere for the week. Read to get back to it. Thank you, Jami. Your newsletter always inspires me, and even though I'm not a paid writer, what I'm doing matters to me, and I know that you support all of us tiny ones trying to keep our story going.
I appreciate the message here that, as I understood it (thanks to the helpful visual of the traffic cone), that stopping to revise - while it feels risky - can move our writing forward, strengthening it in ways we couldn't have imagined. That's a calculated risk that requires also taking a leap of faith. I don't know if I have the courage to do it with my own NaNoWriMo from last year, but by you modeling a way forward, I feel an ounce bit more persuaded that adding some temporal structures or other internally consistent rules can strengthen the bones of the work and help the whole thing stand up and walk, maybe even dance.
Thanks for describing this process with your first 50 pages, Jami, and also the encouragement. I am at the end of a long revision process that included revising my query letter and synopsis. Am I ready? Yes. Maybe. I'm going for it.
Not quite the same, but have been feeling lately that my really great idea for a story was somehow flat. And it is. Both great and also flat. So now I’m thinking I need to build this great idea into something else, and while I’m struggling a little with what that will be, I know it will elevate the idea, breathe life into it, and make it whole.
"but what happened if I took just one week out of my life to try a new angle on a draft?" needed this!
How many times do I wonder about a client's pages "When is this happening? What season is it? Where is it happening?" Specificity helps.
This is really inspiring to me, so that I get back to work. When I did #1000 words, I finished for the first time ever...and kept going. Then I missed a day at the end of June, then a few days, and then I lost my way. I'm starting back on Monday, though, bc my husband is going to be occupied elsewhere for the week. Read to get back to it. Thank you, Jami. Your newsletter always inspires me, and even though I'm not a paid writer, what I'm doing matters to me, and I know that you support all of us tiny ones trying to keep our story going.
I appreciate the message here that, as I understood it (thanks to the helpful visual of the traffic cone), that stopping to revise - while it feels risky - can move our writing forward, strengthening it in ways we couldn't have imagined. That's a calculated risk that requires also taking a leap of faith. I don't know if I have the courage to do it with my own NaNoWriMo from last year, but by you modeling a way forward, I feel an ounce bit more persuaded that adding some temporal structures or other internally consistent rules can strengthen the bones of the work and help the whole thing stand up and walk, maybe even dance.