Books read: 25 (my original goal was 50...I think I'm gonna make it)
Words on BRUSHSTROKES: 5,506/?
My Spring Break, such as it is, is drawing to a close. All three schools had their break on the same week this year, for once, so I actually did have a full week away from my day jobs. But I wouldn't exactly call it a week off.
Even with classes not in session, there were still emails from students to field. I did all the pre-screenings and onboarding paperwork for my new day job, which starts on a part-time basis next week. I'll shift to full-time when the semester ends, and my days as an adjunct will be over.
In spite of the flurry of activity, I managed to have some pretty productive writing days. I wrote to keep my mind off of waiting for Author Mentor Match results, and I wrote to distract myself from the disappointment when I didn't get chosen. But mostly, I wrote because this idea won't let go of me.
The beginning of a project is always weird. You go from looking at something that you've trimmed the fat from and polished and smoothed to looking at the rambling, incoherent slop that is a first draft.
My favorite part of writing is revision. I like tinkering with the story once it's down, looking at the bits and pieces and doing a diagnostic. Working and reworking the sections. I like the part where the shambling mess of a manuscript starts to look like an actual book.
Which means that writing a first draft can be a reeeeeeal challenge. First drafts are, by nature, imperfect. And, when it comes to my writing, I have a tendency to be a perfectionist.
Not all first drafts are alike. Not even all of my first drafts are alike. Some are..draftier, for lack of a better word. Some are more polished. But they're all kinda bad.
Most of my first drafts are solid stories. My tendency to outline serves me pretty well in that way.
But this story is different.
I don't have a plan for BRUSHSTROKES in the way that I had one for CANUS. I have a couple of paragraphs of a summary and a list of the major characters. I know, sort of, where the story will eventually go. I have a pretty solid idea of what the first handful of chapters look like. And that's pretty much it.
Not having a plan has definitely made the process more stressful. There's nothing for me to look to if I get stuck or lose the thread of the story. It makes things feel messy.
Phoebe, my main character in the new MS is messy. She's complicated. And this MS requires a close perspective--BRUSHSTROKES is my first real attempt at first person narration.
I'm hoping that the lack of form, the lack of my usual structure will let me dig a little deeper into Phoebe. It'll mean more revision on the back end, I'm sure, but if I can find her voice, I think it'll be worth it.
But boy, is the process ugly. I'm trying to embrace the crap. I'm really trying.
Long term, I can't say how this experiment will work out. It's certainly let me put a lot of words on the page pretty quickly, but that might have more to do with the week off than anything. We'll see if the wordcount keeps up next week.
When's the last time you shook up your process or wrote something out of your comfort zone? How did it go? Let me know in the comments.
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