the pretty one of the Portland freeway bridges
I’ve just finished reading the first act of A Turquoise Song, second draft, which I was writing earlier in the year but abandoned when other things crowded it out.
When I was writing it, it felt awful – sluggish and uninteresting – but it doesn’t seem to actually like that at all: the pacing is pretty reasonable, and the showing rather than telling seems to be pretty well-balanced. Parts of it are even good, to my eyes.
Let that be a lesson in not making judgements from too close to the text.
The next thing, then, is to formulate a plan for finishing it.
There were two reasons to read this first act: to remind myself of what I had, and to figure out if what I had was worth continuing with. Since what I have actually seems to be OK, I think I will continue with the Song plan I had before – it’s got me this far!
This list takes out the completed items from the original plan, and rephrases some of the others as appropriate. It also adds a step for polishing.
- To complete the outline.
- To complete the second draft in line with the outline.
- Edit that second draft. Repeat (2) and (3) for subsequent drafts as necessary.
- Make submission materials – synopsis, pitch, hook, and all of that.
Next up will be reading the initial draft of Shapes, my 2013 NaNoWriMo project. We’ll see what that looks like in a week or two.
By “earlier in the year” I assume you mean last year. Otherwise, you _really_ work fast. 🙂
“Let that be a lesson in not making judgements from too close to the text.”
Oh, absolutely. You can misjudge the worth of the work as a whole, and also you can (and, pretty much inevitably, will) miss little glitches here and there. I talk about this in my current blog post — that there is no substitute for taking a real break from a project (I expect this applied to other arts as well).