Ready. Set. Write: One Step at a Time

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, and Jaime Morrow 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

My goal last week was to work on revisions at least five times a week and complete a list of needed revisions. Done and done. I now have a handy list of changes to make, divided by type of revision.

Of course that was the easy part…

2. MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK

Well, bother. Now that I’ve met last week’s goals, I’m at the hard part: putting all that brainstorming to use. This week, I’d like to:

• Work on revisions at least five times per week
• Revise major plot issues

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

No line this week since I didn’t make any changes to the text. I did do a lot of brainstorming, especially to turn one of my flat side characters three dimensional. The most appropriate word for that process? Long. Long, long, LONG.

4. THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE I FACED THIS WEEK

You’d probably get bored if I listed fear here every week, so let’s pick something different. I’ll go with belief. I have a (very long) list of changes to make to my WIP, and this week I struggled with the belief that I can get the story from where it is to where it needs to be.

I’m sticking with last week’s mantra: One step at a time. So I have about eleventy billion things to revise. That’s okay. I’ll start with No. 1 and not worry about the rest until I hit No. 2.

At least, that’s the plan.

5. SOMETHING I LOVE ABOUT MY WIP

For all the whining and moaning I’ve been doing about my WIP, I do love it. Like, if we were in a YA novel, I’d hate my WIP so much but at the same time be strangely attracted to its charm.

Well, that wasn’t creepy at all.

What I love most at this point is the dialog. The characters are either inconsistent or flat or otherwise a mess, the setting needs beefing up, and subplots vanish somewhere between the beginning and the end, but the dialog works. That’s no surprise—it’s the easiest for me to write—but it’s nice to see at least something was working in this draft.

How are you doing with your writing goals?