Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Writing Goals Rock

After finishing my NaNo novel for 2010 I was thrilled. In my opinion, it was my best project yet. I loved the characters. I loved the story line. I loved that fact that the first draft was finished. Yet, there is still so much more work to be done. I love it, but in all reality, it's 65k words of trash.

So begins second draft. Rewrites. 500 words into rewriting I discovered something. I have a love/hate relationship with doing it. I love taking a sentence from the original and turning it into something so much better. Telling the story in a clearer way. Adding scenes that I can't believe I forgot in the first draft. Scenes that reveal secrets you never would have believed were there.
At the same time however, is this ever going to end? Each word gets me closer to the end of draft two, each word makes for an even better novel, but for someone who's attention span is rather short lived, the whole thing is already becoming rather difficult.

I guess the best way to deal with that is to finish as soon as possible. Thus, I have set myself the goal of finishing draft two by June 1st. On top of that, I would like to keep working on Ash Valley (check out my new page, Current Writing Projects to read about Ash Valley). Maybe get the first draft finished?

Writing goals rock. 'Nuff said.

4 comments:

  1. Very good idea. Maybe that's what I need. Although, it's hard for me to figure out which things in my life have the higher priority for setting goals. Should I set goals for my writing to get back into it? Or rather, should I set goals for learning Hebrew (since that actually cost real money and I'm more interested in it right now)? Or do I need some exercising goals? Healthy-eating goals? Time-management goals? Okay, thinking out loud here. :)

    The more I think about this, the more I think goals are good for all areas of life. Hey, you've got me inspired to sit down and list a bunch of areas of my life and write goals for each.

    Now the goal is to actually get that accomplished in the near future. ;)

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  2. I adore your dedication to your writing! Go girl!!! <3

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  3. It may be tiring to make your 2nd draft... but keep it up! You'll want to have these novels finished. So that when your children read them one day, you'll have stories finished from different stages of your life. It will be very interesting, you know. *smile*

    Anyways, you are doing better than me in the whole writing process right now.

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  4. I went over to your writing projects page... love all the summaries of your books! There is something that caught me attention so greatly, that I had to mention...

    Your book "The Way We Think" sounds SOOO much like a certain TV show that my brother and I watch. I think this is an epic coincidence. Just for grins, the show is called "Tower Prep" (a school for advancing & perfecting special abilities)...and the main character's name is Ian. The summary of this show is very similar to your book.

    I just had to tell you that. I think it caught me off guard. =)

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