I love Work in Progress Wednesdays. Between homeschool starting up again, critiquing writing partner’s work, continuing my study of the craft of writing, reading for downtime, cleaning, writing blog posts, and attempting to keep up with blog reading, it can be tempting to not always get my writing time in every day. But then I think about the Wednesday post looming ahead, and I get to work 🙂
I am still in the query stages for the YA manuscript I completed in November and this weekend had to write the dreaded full synopsis for an agent requesting a full. Luckily, creating it wasn’t as horrible as I’d feared, but it was definitely nerve-wracking. But now I have one more writing phobia scratched off my list!
Here is the 411 on my new project :
Current Phase of Writing: Still in the Character Interview phase, strangely enough still with my protag. One thing slowing down the process is the wonderful breakthroughs I’m getting for the other characters while conducting her interview, and continually having to stop to write these tidbits down.
I’ve also collected so many awesome new questions to ask that are really helping me get inside this character’s head. I must confess that the protag in my first manuscript was similar to me, so I got where she was coming from. This character is completely different, and I am really wanting to understand all her motivations so I can really nail her personality. As I work through the lists of questions, there have been several times I’ve written something that just feels so right that I then have to go back up and change answers to other questions. . . which also slows the process down but is so worth it.
One other thing I’ve been working on is my protag’s play list. For the first project, I just created a story soundtrack with different songs reflecting different chapters and turning points. But to really get in my MC’s head, I am designing her very own play list. I am having so much fun going through our HUGE music library and choosing what songs I think she’d listen to or reflect her emotional state, and knowing that many of these are things I’ve never listened to myself. It is strangely exciting to know I am crafting someone so different and gearing up to this life with this person for the next several months. My protag has me listening to punk, indie, rock, and crazily enough A LOT of show tunes! The play list has also been beneficial while answering some of the interview questions as well.
Little Hints: Butterfly pendant.
Writing Goal For the Coming Week: Hmm, I might just keep last week’s goals as I didn’t quite meet those. Finish the Protag Character Interview and at least have the majority of the Love Interest’s Interview completed. If needed, work on his personal play list.
What about YOU? Do you create character play lists? What is the CRAZIEST thing your character made you listen to?
HAPPY WRITING!
