WiP Wednesday 4/20/14 to 4/26/14

Crazy busy week last week, but I did manage to get a little bit of work in.

I wrote and revised and rewrote my query for Woven several times in the last week. (I even got a critique on it by an awesomely nice real-live agent.) That'll get revised a couple more times in May before I start querying Woven in June.

Character sheets for the superhero short story I'm working on were created this last week. Those are mostly done. I'll still continue to tweak them and expand them as the days go by. However, I have also started writing the short story. I think you're going to like these characters, friends. Keep your fingers crossed it gets accepted for the anthology I'm submitting it to.

The short story stands just shy of 850 words right now. The first draft is due at the end of the week. (Deadline I set for myself.) I should make it there piece of cake.

First round of revisions are nearly done on the first superhero novella (hereon referred to as RotWR). I'm rewriting the ending so it's more action-packed and stuff which is why it's going a bit slower than it should.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday First In September

Yeesh. Sorry for the lack of updates on the rewrite. It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

A crazy couple of weeks with zero writing progress. As of this writing (which I'm writing this most recent Sunday), I haven't written since Labor Day.

On Labor Day, I finished up the first draft of a short story I want to sub, but I'm not sure the sub call is still open. I have to check on that (as of writing this post, not it's posting, I haven't). It's about 5500 words that I still have to revise and title. It's set 180 or so years before Heirs of the Seven Realms begins and is the story of how the first fairy's parents met.

I am buckling down this week on the Woven rewrite since I'll be starting a new job soon and won't get much writing done during the crazy transition period. New schedules will take some getting used to but I'll get there and back in the swing of things with writing.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 8/26/13-9/1/13

Oh, progress, you elusive beast.

Admittedly, I could and should have done better this week at writing. I forgot to keep track of my progress in word count and only accounted for one day of my writing. That one day I wrote a mere 536 words. I have no recollection of writing any other day of the week but last Monday. At least not on my rewrite of Woven.

I'm working on a short story and hoping to sub it to an anthology. While I traditionally avoid writing on Sundays, this short story smacked me over the head with a plot and it had to be written down before I lost it entirely. The story's not finished but it should be finished this week. Then it's on to revisions.

The story is set in the same world as Woven but it takes place roughly 180 years in the past from the start of Woven. Events that are referenced and have direct consequence on the events of Heirs of the Seven Realms are explored a tiny bit in this short story.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday: 8/12/13-8/19/13

Wow, what a week it was in the world of my writing. I have really striven with this rewrite to be sure I write as much anew as possible, rather than copying and pasting from the old drafts. That said, this week I reached a point in the story where some important reveals had to happen and I needed the details perfect. Which means I had a couple of large portions to copy-paste from the old manuscriipt.

All this led to a whopping week's word count of 16,915 words.

It surprised me when I tallied that up.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 8/4/13-8/11/13

As is often the case, the best-laid plans often go awry. My goal this week was to get back on track to my 1K a day goal. And I did.

Until I didn't.

As of 11 or so Saturday morning, I was fully on track. I had written just over 7200 words. About half an hour later, I'd deleted about 3K of those words.

The story had gone far astray and needed a course correction. Of course I had a plan (as my mom asked me when I told her this). It just went awry.

I'd been trying to play up an element of tension between two characters that ran pretty subtly through the original few drafts. I'm now working to make it more subtle and yet more present now. And that required a wholesale deletion of almost two days' worth of work.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 7/28/13-8/3/13

Well, this rewrite is coming along swimmingly, much to my surprise.  I'm revamping some aspects of character and one little "surprise you can do this too" element that risked turning my MC into a Mary Sue.

I've changed the dynamic of a character interaction/relationship. It's a lot more adversarial now and I think I like it a bit more.

The flow of reveals, of how and what and when my MC learns some things about her heritage is changing, too. And I think it's more sensical now than before.

All in all, last week I added 7072 words to the manuscript (after some cuts/reworkings of a previous scene or two.)

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 7/22/13-7/28/13

Well, this rewrite is going swimmingly. Slowly, but swimmingly. Last week, despite houseguest for an extended weekend, I managed to add just over 5500 words to the rewrite.

I've changed up an initial relationship a bit. It's a little more adversarial and I think makes it a little more lively. It also (I hope) helps add to the tension and mystery surrounding this character. (Things which will be revealed over the course of the trilogy.)

I do think this draft is a lot smoother than the previous versions. I've moved things around, changed the order of reveals, and just generally improved the pacing of the world-building in this book. Mostly it's in regards to the fae and their mythology.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 7/14/13-7/20/13

Another work week gone by. And this one was way more productive than the last couple had been.

I'm writing most of the words anew for this version of the book. But I'm finding that where I had a particular description of a setting or person, I can copy-paste it and change anything necessary to making the POV switch. With that added bonus, I added about 5500 words to the manuscript this last week. Maybe half of that was copy-pasted and the rest new. I'm really not certain on the ratio there.

I really do think this version is a lot smoother than the last. There are changes to the pacing of my MC's gleaning of knowledge that I think make more sense than in the last versions of the book.

Overall, I'm glad I made the choice to rewrite the book, even if it does kill me that I made it so late in the process.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 7/1/13-7/7/13

Time for me to face the music. I only wrote about 1400 words total last week. I have this bad habit of escaping into video games when reality starts to weigh on me too heavily. There's some stuff in my reality that's thrown me into a funky head space when it comes to writing. I get these depressive moods when I look at my reality and when they get really bad, I just have to go let time erase itself while I stare at a screen.

It's probably not healthy, I know. But it's how I cope/deal with things. No, it's nothing serious or life threatening. Just stuff I can't really talk about online. It's got me really not in a good head space for writing which is why last week's progress was so pathetic.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 6/24/13-6/30/13

I started the rewrite of Woven last week. And it's going amazingly well. I think the manuscript is already a lot smoother and stronger than before.

Which makes me just kick myself over and over. Oh well.

I got about 5K in last week which doesn't seem like much but it felt like it took no time at all to get that far. This week should be awesome for word count, assuming the rewrite continues to go smoothly.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 6/10/13-6/16/13

Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of anything going on in my writing world last week. At least not as far as writing is concerned. There was moaning and stressing and all such emotions associated with the query process.

Mostly I played various Zelda titles to my heart's content. But the games have been put up now in favor of writing time.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 6/3/2013-6/9/2013

This week? Progress? Yeah, not so much.

I've once again fallen out of love with the adventure novel. My heart is just not in it. So I've decided to take another break from it and see what happens the next time I open the manuscript.

I've got some secret stuff I'm working on right now that's keeping my toes in the writing waters. But that's all I'm going to say for now.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 5/27/13-6/2/13

I wrote about 4100 words this week on the adventure novel. I'm starting to slog through it again which is sad because I had such renewed zeal for the book when I started up with it again a month or so ago. Maybe my enthusiasm for it will resurge. I don't think I'll ever revise this book or shop it around or anything. But it's been fun to write outside my normal genre for a while.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 5/20/13-5/26/13

I've debated whether to post this progress update since I think I wrote 50 words last week.

I have a very valid reason for it though. I spent the majority of last week driving through parts of 4 states as my family and I traveled for my Grandfather's funeral in California and burial in southern Utah. It was a long week with a lot of hours spent in the car. And I get sick easily on the road so writing and reading don't happen on road trips. Then all that time spent with family I haven't seen since the last big event doesn't leave time for writing. Not when visiting and condoling is, honestly, much higher priority than writing.

The funeral was beautiful and the burial was incredibly moving. He was buried with full military honors, which is an awe-inspiring thing.

WiP Wednesday 5/5/13-5/11/13

I actually have decent progress to report. I'd been kind of slogging through writing, doing my best to get some sort of word count in each day. Most days I wasn't that successful. Really, I was battling the inner doubt monster in order to get any words written.

I got almost all the way done with my revision read-through on the novella. One chapter of it left and I'll have all my notes done so I can actually go in and revise it.

I did break the 20K mark on the adventure novel. I actually beat that goal by nearly 4K words. So that was major progress. My MC has moved from Norway to Germany in his travels. (If you ever get to read this book, you'll understand what I mean.) I'm struggling with his voice. This book is written in 1st person and present tense so it's proving quite a challenge. That is what revisions are for, however.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 4/28/13-5/4/13

Uh, yeah.

Progress on the revision was nominal at best. I had several nights of poor sleep which led to sleeping to the last possible moment so I wasn't a zombie when it came to my day job. I'm still working on a read-through to get the bigger issue stuff. When I do something like this, I use the comments feature in my word processor after copying and pasting the entire story into a new file. The file with the comments gets renamed "Draft #" and the clean file gets the story name for a label. I'm aiming to have the read-through done this week so I can start in on revisions next week.

As for the first draft of the other book, progress was also pretty slow. I'm really rusty at this whole drafting thing after so many months off from writing. I'm looking to break at least the 20K mark this week (and will report in on that next week). I don't know why but this time around trying to draft this book I'm not feeling so bad about the book. (I really hated it when I wrote the first 16K of the book a few months back so I put it in the dust drawer.)

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 4/21-4/27

Progress last week was pretty nil. I've been really stuck and I can tell that by all the ways I found to procrastinate jumping back into this rewrite. But Saturday it really, really hit me what the problem was. I was thinking about that piece of advice you always see floating around. You know the one. Work on something not related to the book you're revising or querying or on submission with. It's given for various reasons, but it's advice that needs to be followed.

If I were asked the question, "What are you working on that isn't related to Woven or reliant upon it getting published?" well–

My answer? I have a contemporary YA that I've plotted out, an NA title that is 1/3 written that I'm toying with picking up again, and that's it. The majority of what I have spent my creative capital on in the last two or so years is all connected to this one book that I have on query right now. I think why I'm so blocked and uninterested in this rewrite is that I subconsciously (and now perhaps not so subconsciously) fear that I'm setting myself up for heartbreak by working on something that so heavily relies on something not in my control to ever get seen by readers.

So, I'm reevaluating and looking at some of these other projects I've had ideas for and abandoned over the last couple of years. Maybe something will spark and I can find a project to work on.

Meantime, I did get the contemporary YA plotted. I just would need character sheets and then I could start writing. So that's probably, most likely, where I'm headed from here. But I do still have that NA action-adventure novel I abandoned a while back calling my name. I may revisit it in the near future. Because I still love the story and the idea behind it so it's perhaps worth trying to save.

How are your WiPs going?

If you have a question you're dying to ask me, something you want me to address either here on my site or over at the Dojo, send it to info(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

Comments and other fun stuff can be sent to stephanie(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

WiP Wednesday 4/14-4/20

Yeah, not so much to report this week. I kept finding little things that needed to be fixed in all the background stuff. So I didn't get back into rewrites like I'd intended. I think I must be blocked in some way because I'm finding avoidance tactics everywhere I can.

I got a new plot bunny, too. This one's a contemporary YA inspired by a Carrie Underwood song. I'm plotting it out but I don't know if it'll ever actually get written. It's sort of falling apart the more I plot it. So we'll see.

How are your WiPs going?

If you have a question you're dying to ask me, something you want me to address either here on my site or over at the Dojo, send it to info(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

Comments and other fun stuff can be sent to stephanie(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

WiP Wednesday 4/7-4/13

Time for another update on the writing. Which didn't happen this week.

You see, I discovered an error in some of the background/world-building stuff. An error which was crucial to fix before I could go forward with the rewrites and plotting of my latest plot bunny set in this fantasy world.

An issue which took hours and hours to fix, meaning it took the entire week to correct. My brain seriously hurts right now.

I did start plotting the new story but it's slow-going.

How are your WiPs going?

WiP Wednesday 12/31-1/6

Well, there aren't any updates to report. I am continuing my writing hiatus through January, I think. I didn't read as much in November and December as I needed to. My goal is to read everything on my TBR pile this month and get working on background stuff for the YA contemporary I have brewing in my head. That way I can be prepared to start writing in February.

If I come off of writing hiatus, that is.

How are your WiPs going?

If you have a question you're dying to ask me, something you want me to address either here on my site or over at the Dojo, send it to info(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

Comments and other fun stuff can be sent to stephanie(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com