RSW: End In Sight

In case you’ve just tuned in, I’m taking part in Ready, Set, Write. It’s a summer writing intensive hosted by Alison Miller, Katy Upperman, Erin Funk, Jaime Morrow, and Elodie Nowodazkij that encourages goal-setting and provides accountability. Basically it’s a bunch of writers cheering each other on to meet their writing or revising goals. There’s whip-cracking, too, for slackers like me.

And now, my update:

1. HOW I DID ON LAST WEEK’S GOALS

I’m pretty sure my name is in the dictionary, right in the “goal-setter” listing. Not, like, within the definition or anything. You’d get the whole explanation, then there’d be:

ANTONYMS: Tracey Neithercott

(Incidentally, “goal-setter” is not in the dictionary. But OMG and selfie are. Way to keep it classy, English language.)

On the plus side, while I’ve been a crap blogger and haven’t set a goal about a month, I have been working hard. I’m so close to the end of this revision I can practically taste The End.

(If you’re curious, it’s chocolaty with hints of relief and booze.)

2. MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK

This is so easy: Finish this revision. If I can’t do that, you all have permission to heckle me online with things like “YOUR HAIR IS UGLY TODAY” and “NICE DAYTIME PJs, LOSER!”

3. A FAVORITE LINE FROM MY STORY OR ONE WORD/PHRASE THAT SUMS UP WHAT I WROTE/REVISED

If my first draft was a human it’d be skin and bones. The kind of human you’re not quite sure is alive because its skin is semi-transparent and its knobby bones poke out at weird angles. So a lot of this revision was beefing this thing up—adding setting details, writing scenes I so thoughtfully left blank or with kind comments like “Come up with something.”

Which is to say: I have a lot of new words and can share some this week:

My hands are shaking. I double knot my bikini ties to give them something to do. Fitz tugs my hands away, holds them in his. This should be Sadie, standing atop a slimy green rock, skin to skin with a boy who looks death in the face with a wink and a dare. Gazing into Fitz’s eyes is like staring at a beating heart. He’s so intensely and perfectly alive.

4. THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK

The headline for this week was definitely TRACEY VS. TIME: FIGHT TO THE PAIN! It was crunch week at work, so I had less time to revise. But I still managed to get some in five days this week.

This weekend my 9-year-old nephew and father-in-law came up from Maryland, so it was a work-free few days. Instead?

We played a mean game of Mouse Trap. This included building instructions only slightly better than Ikea’s and hours of testing and re-testing the trap because that’s the fun part.

We went to the drive-in up in New Hampshire and he gorged himself on pizza and cotton candy (the most best thing there is!) and cookies (moms make the best cookies—they all use the same recipe) and soda (Pepsi > Coke). My sister-in-law is going to love us.

There was comic-reading time. And video games. Bumper boats, an arcade, and so much junk food I think he’s 98 percent sugar now.

5. SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP

The friendships. My main character is a bit of a loner at the start, and I love the slow building of friends over the course of the story.

 How was your writing week?