A SHORT Summation of the 'Week of Writing'
I needed a break from posting on the weekend. I had a cough and aches. Sometimes, such days turn out to be solid work days: write in bed, sleep, wake up, and write more.
Am I finished the novel? No. But so close. The week pulled it together in a way it needed to be. Still more to do—reading through and polishing.
The chapters are functioning as they should, length and rhythm-wise. Threads are all there, and pulled throughout. Character development—but that never goes far enough, is how it feels at this point. Those character-blog-posts still need lengthening and tweaking. Just now, returned from a masked and quick trip to drug-store for something to de-congest (tested, and no, it’s not covid), and need to get this post completed.
Other things happen, too. Life things: a long-ago ex-student in need of a quick reference letter. A fellow Substacker asking for guest-posts. Do check out…
Yesterday, I sent two re-worked novel excerpts to my writing group. We are so committed to our deadlines that the one of us with a young child actually emailed her submission to us at 11:51 p.m. I find that inspiring. It helps to share work with others who are equally committed.
More than anything, though, I’m aware that I’m working to battle self-doubt. I remind myself that I have been here before, many times, really. But I am at the point at which if I look at the manuscript in one way I see it as “almost ready to go,” and if I look at it another, it appears to be a mess. (It’s not.) (It is.)
So along with my usual commitments, I will go on with the read-and-polish. With summer travel it’ll be three weeks before my group meets to discuss; I hope to have it to my agent around that same time. I’ll keep you posted.
And I’ll keep this short as I am tired, but did want to let you know. And how much I appreciate your comments and thoughts about your processes, too.
How fixed are your deadlines? Your personal writing deadlines? Your group deadlines? Does one push you with the other? What do you feel or what do you do when you miss a deadline? How has your final-writing-stages changed the longer you write?
This clanged my chime:
“But I am at the point at which if I look at the manuscript in one way I see it as “almost ready to go,” and if I look at it another, it appears to be a mess. (It’s not.) (It is.)”
Hope you are feeling better. It's my impression that several years of isolating has meant when friends of mine get a non-Covid virus, it's a doozy! As far as deadlines, when I am setting these for myself, I call them guidelines--ie tentative dates for accomplishing a task––because one of the benefits of being self-employed is that I am the boss, and I am very understanding with my employee (me) because I know that life happens, and I have learned that keeping a well-balanced life (physically, emotionally, etc) requires flexibility. It is great when I meet one of those tentative dates, but unless I have promised to get something done for someone else, my expectation is that as long as I get the thing done within a week of that tentative date, I've met my goal. Sounds to me like that's what you've done with this week of writing. So hurrah!