Posts Tagged ‘Progress’
I’m up to the part of the book I hate — the dreaded “black moment” where I have to break my characters up just so they can get to their Happily Ever After.
I have two problems with this:
- I like my characters. I love that they’re together and happy. I don’t want to torture them by breaking them apart.
- I’m not quite sure how to get them there. The heroine, having been abused by an ex, has issues with men, especially men of the hero’s size (tall, dark and handsome). Of course he can’t actually hit her, or no one would like him. (Plus, it’d be out of character.) But she has to feel threatened enough to walk out on him.
Aargh! This is the hard part!
With just a little more than 8,000 words to write to hit the 90K mark needed for a single-title contemporary, I’m finding words are just pouring out of my head an onto the page.
Where was all this enthusiasm last week, when I needed it to end the NaNo with a less-pathetic word count?
Oh well. If I can keep this momentum going, I’ll soon be typing the momentous words: “First draft complete!”
How exciting that will be! I’ve never finished a full-length MS before. All my others are category length. I can’t wait.
First up? Setting it aside for a few weeks, at least, before a read-through. In those weeks, I’ll be starting to shop for an agent for “Operation Snag Mike/Brad,” the GH entry.
Now that I’ve decided to get my rear in gear, things are starting to happen for me. How thrilling! 😀
At the beginning of November, I set a personal NaNoWriMo goal of writing the 40,000 words that it would take to finish “Blind Date Bride.”
Well, it’s now the end of the month, and I haven’t written 40K words. I haven’t even written 30K.
However, I’m still considering it a victory. I have more than 25,000 words that I did not have at the beginning of the month, and I’m now just that much closer to having the first draft of “Blind Date Bride” finished.
In fact, I just did the math, and I have just 11,500 words left to get my 90K to make it contemporary single title length. Woo-hoo!
I don’t know how you all write, but my first drafts are mostly pretty good. Some things change, but the bulk of the first draft — from conversations to the action — remains intact. So once I hit that 90K mark, I’m practically golden!
This time, I mean my Golden Heart entry — all 246 pages of it, plus the disk with my full MS on it. I dropped it off at the post office sometime between 11 a.m. and noon.
It felt like such a momentous occasion. I was so darn proud of myself I had to call the Boyfriend right away and tell him it was done.
It wasn’t until I drove back across town that I had a moment of panic. Did I really put the disk with my full MS on it in the box? I know I did … because if I didn’t, where is it? Not in the car … So I’m sure it’s right where it’s supposed to be — on its merry way to RWA HQ.
I had some credit on my Picazzo’s loyalty card, so I treated myself to one of my favorite lunches — a slice of pizza and caesar side salad. Delicious! And the momentous occasion of entering my first Golden Heart competition deserved to be celebrated.
So celebrate I did. Now, on to the next project: Trying to catch up on my NaNo word count. I should be able to make good headway this weekend, because I’m not working. Not only am I not working, but I also have a NARWA meeting — and I always get fired up to write when I go to those.
My problem is that I usually have to head back home and go to work … and by the time I get home after a long day/night at work, I’m too tired and/or have lost that motivation. Not this time. A weekend stretches before me with just two commitments: the meeting Saturday morning and Boyfriend time Sunday evening.
20,000 words, here I come!
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