Work In Progress Wednesday


This week has been busy but I managed to get in 3 or 4 days of writing. 200 words here, 500 words there. Last Friday it took me most of the day to type up the 10 pages I mentioned in last wednesday's post. But boy did it feel good when it was done. Finally, a beginning to the story that flowed.

The past couple days were kind of draggy. The words just weren't flowing. I had two different ways to go with Samantha meeting Benjamin for the first time. The first way, he would be having a meeting with her brother when she arrived, It just didn't flow right and seem to kill the mystic of meeting her.

What do you do when you feel like you are fighting the characters? Ask the character, right. I can see my Dad shaking his head right now and chuckling as he reads this and saying: "Mother, now she's having imaginary conversations with the characters in her story." This used to sound so silly to me when people would talk about interviewing their characters or letting the character be their guide or that their character was hijacking the story. I understand it totally now.

My brother had a invisible friend when he was little. He called this invisible friend - Paul Newman. That's right - he totally made up the name, didn't have any idea it was the name of a real person. We got a kick out of watching him talk to Paul Newman or telling us to watch out, we were about to sit on Paul. At least I not seeing invisible friends. I did daydream a lot when I was a young girl. I remember once writing a story in my head and imagining the action. One of my sisters was sitting in the living room across from me and she caught me making faces as I imagined what the character was doing.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Not wanting to admit to daydreaming about fancy cars and women spies, thinking for some reason she would think it was weird. She watched me very curiously after that for quite a while and I learned not to make faces while daydreaming. Now I have come full circle back to when writing out a scene, I find myself once again making faces and making twitchy gestures as I imagine their movements. And every time, I'm reminded of my sister asking me "What are you doing?"

So this afternoon, I rewrote the scene the way Samantha wanted it to go and we are both happy now. Plus I kept in mind the A to Z exercise suggested by Davin at Literary Lab and it helped immensely.

The goal for the next week is just to keep on writing - shooting for 500 words a day; keep working on the story, perhaps another two chapters and just enjoy the process.

Did you meet your writing goal this week?



Thank you to Kate of The Lovers, The Dreamers and Me for hosting Work In Progress Wednesdays. It is helping to keep me accountable. If you would like to participate, post your wip entry and leave a comment on Kate's blog.

6 comments:

  1. I did make my goal! I hope I can keep it up. :)

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  2. Good for you this week. I love your A to Z story so I'm glad to hear it's going to be used in your book. Good luck this next week.

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  3. Oh my! I'm laughing so hard! I had a very similar experience with daydreaming only it was my mom who was asking what I was grinning about. "Nothing" of course! And as I'm typing this up, my three year old is having a conversation with himself. I wonder if he would answer "nothing" if I asked him what he was doing. lol!

    Good luck with your goals!

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  4. That's so funny about your sister catching you daydreaming. My husband will sometimes see me staring really intensely at nothing and ask me what is wrong, when really I am million miles away thinking of something else.

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  5. I'm so impressed by your writing!! You're so busy how do you find the time to write too?

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  6. Thanks, guys.

    Jennifer: great job!

    Margot: Thanks, the exercise sparked a few brain cells and some creative ways to write

    Nisa: Yep, my son, now 9, has been talking to himself for as long as I can remember.

    Kate: My husband always asks "what are you thinking about" when he sees me staring off into space. 9 times out of 10, its about the book. :)

    Staci: That's the problem, I don't always find time. I may write 3 or 4 days out of the week at max, depending on what's going on. I'd like to write everyday, but sometimes you just gotta sleep. :)

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