My current WIP (work in progress) is a contemporary YA romance set in Texas. I started working on the outline and characters in July and began active writing in the beginning of August.
Current Word Count: ahh, the beauty of editing and revising! This time last week it was 20,000. As of this moment, it is 19,531 and I think it is a much tighter story with the cuts.
Little Hints: Did you know they have vanilla birthday-cake scented shampoo?
Soundtrack Song of the Week: I have a soundtrack that I made of songs that fit my story. I did this during the outline phase, and it actually took some time to do, but I am sooo glad I did! It is such a wonderful source of inspiration and really puts me in the mood to write.
Today’s song: It’s My Life/Confessions by the Glee Cast.
Writing or Editing Trick Used This Week That Worked Particularly Well:
Critique Partners!! First my wonderful husband went through my entire story twice and gave his suggestions on pacing and word choice and characterization. That took my story up a huge notch. THEN, Nancy, one of my friends from Houston’s YA/MG writer’s group, exchanged with me. We have had so much fun sending parts of our story back and forth and giving each other suggestions, feedback and advice. When I took her suggestions and made them my own, my story became so much better than I could have thought — and I had been pretty happy with it as far as first drafts go anyway. THANK YOU NANCY!!
Personal High: Getting that first critique back from her and hearing her wonderful comments along with the constructive criticism. There was a lot of detail and it meant so much that she took the time to do that for me. Just as good was her gratitude for the time I took for her own story. I really love it–it’s also a contemporary YA romance–and being a good CP is just as important to me as having one.
Personal Low: Worrying once I get this last set of revisions done on the first 70 pages of my story–which I have been working on for the past week and a half–that it will be hard to get back into the full swing of things with the story . . . but this revision time was needed as I’ve been working through two awesome books on editing from the library and they are do back lol.
Writing Goal For the Coming Week: Finish these revisions and get through two new chapters.
HAPPY WRITING!
