After the 6-AM Editing Challenge

I'm not sure when it ended. A month ago, maybe. Two months? When I started the challenge, remember, I wanted to try and make it through my final semester and make dramatic progress editing Mirrorpass. Which I accomplished. It took a scattering of unproductive weeks in between, but after semester ended, edits were still going strong; in fact, I abandoned my "challenge" schedule and began editing every second I could.

The result?

I finished.

Yes, that's right, I finished this draft! The major overhaul-rewrite-revise-rewrite-again draft that I've been working on for, oh, ages is now done. The final statistics are humbling:

I started the challenge in March and finished somewhere in June.

At the beginning of the challenge, I had 46% of the novel left to edit.

Now the draft is complete.

My starting wordcount was around 95k, and I wanted to be in the 80k range.

My ending wordcount is just under 80k.

I needed to overhaul the entire second act, and the third act until the climax

And I did it!

I had two earlier chapters that, having been edited, also needed rewrites; I did those

And finally, I needed to get it ready for betas, which I did.

Although I'm not sure when the challenge officially ended, I am declaring it an official success. Not only did I accomplish everything I set out to do, it got me over a major roadblock. Whereas before I struggled to make any progress, now I'm well on my way toward finishing.

I can breathe, I can move, I can start fantasizing; I can even start toying with the next story idea. It's such an amazing feeling!

Still, having gotten Mirrorpass this far, I don't want to let this forward momentum die out. I'm looking for betas and passing the full manuscript out. While it's with readers, I'm doing a full continuity edit to iron out any remaining plot or concept wrinkles. After that begins an unquantifiable proccess--line edits, wash rinse repeat, polishing, wash rinse repeat.

And then? Dare I aspire toward the goal of querying?

Perhaps for now I'll wait, and edit, and see; and until then it can be the final unspoken milestone.

Truly and always,

-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge: Getting Organized

Dear blog friends, I neglected you again. That’s my bad. I’ve been a little distracted.

Last post I said, “I’ve realized how much stuff occurred in the last sequence that needs to be organized before moving on, so I’ll be tweaking those scenes and prepping for the upcoming Dark Moment sequence. Next week, I’ll start tackling it.”
I meant to started tackling the Dark Moment (aka Capture) sequence, but the part about “tweaking those scenes” turned out to be a much bigger project then I thought.

It went down like this.

FIRST WEEKEND:

Trying to plan what I would do next week, I felt like I wasn’t organized enough. I had a funny floating feeling—this always happens when I lose my sense of pacing. Which plot threads needed work? Where were they in their development? Why were Aria’s emotions all over the place? I was pretty confused. I needed to go back and figure why.

WEEK 7:

Given the weekend, my main goal was simply to identify what, exactly, wasn’t working in the previous sequence. I had a vague idea that it was buried in a certain group of scenes spanning multiple chapters, so I ended up printing out most of the sequence in hardcopy and reading through.

I discovered something really crazy. I’d been seeding the same plot thread over and over again. My characters would come to a conclusion in one scene; then, as if they’d never had the conversation before, they would discuss it in a subsequent scene. Key pieces of the development were missing.

No wonder I felt like I was “floating”—my plot threads were all over the place!

I’ve changed so much of the underlying motivations and conflicts in this draft. Although the bones of my plot haven’t changed much, I’ve really lost track of what’s supposed to be happening in certain places, whether I traced a certain plot thread through, what stage of development I’m in, etc.

As a result, I had a ton of scenes that, on first glance, didn’t need much work; the writing was good, the plot sound. I have discussion and introspection and turning points all in the right spots—but they’re all about the wrong things. I’d completely lost story continuity.

So the question was, what should happen during that sequence? From start to finish, what was the development of this plot thread?

This revelation occurred to me during lunch break. I scribbled a bunch of keywords and prose fragments that held all the essential twists of the plot thread. The next day, I rewrote the scene, adding almost 2K where I hashed out the entire plot thread all in one big brain dump.

SECOND WEEKEND:

I spent the rest of the weekend cutting that scene up into pieces, and plugging those pieces throughout the rest of the sequence. The result was more fleshed-out, more realistic, and had three times the buildup.

Win for the team.

I was pumped, so I completely edited the first scene of the next sequence. And then I realized I didn’t know what to do next. In this sequence, I needed to follow-through on the same plot threads I’d struggled over in previous sequences. What was the next stage of their development?

On top of that, this sequence contains a string of short excerpts from an investigative report, which I’ve had a lot of trouble writing. The original excerpts needed work. I just wasn’t sure what kind.

WEEK 8:

I decided to tackle the chapter not linearly, but one mental step at a time, working from what I knew through what I didn’t know. (BEST PRACTICE: When in doubt, start with what you know!)

What I knew was how to keep continuity from the scenes in Aria’s POV, so I sat down intending to work on them. While re-reading the scenes I had an idea how to fix the non-POV excerpts. I spent a whole day rewriting those and figuring out where to place them throughout the sequence.

After that, I rewrote the next scenes from Aria’s POV. Finally, I wrote a brand new scene to replace one that I’d cut, tipping readers off to a new plot thread.
At the end of the week? I’d finished the first chapter of the Capture sequence. Not nearly as much progress as I’d hoped for, but still. Good progress.

WHICH LEADS US TO…

Now. Week 9.

This is going to be another toughie. Once again, I have to follow through on those same plot threads that I’ve struggled with weeks 7 and 8. On top of that, I discovered one more plot element that suffers from the same continuity errors as my previous sequence. It’s a smaller thread in a sense, but it will be more difficult to fix, because it has to do with my antagonists and affects the climax.

So the goals:

• Do major edits to fix continuity errors. Gulp.
• Follow through on plot threads, which get resolved (thankfully) at the end of this sequence.
• General line & scene edits.

Daunted as I am by my first goal, I have the whole week off from both school and work, so this is the time to do it. To quote Joyce Carol Oates, "One always is or always should be writing."

I know a lot of other people are finishing school, as well. Good luck!

Truly and always,
-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge – Week 6

People, I’m pumped.

I devoted this week wholly to organization because I want a clear picture of what needs to be done going into the final sequences of MIRRORPASS. I’ve spent my time reading the next sequences, re-reading the past sequence to refresh my memory of the status of plot threads, and identified scenes I want to cut or update.

The previous sequence has been like working in a hole. So much insane hashing, merging, cutting, and writing happened that I couldn’t tell if I’d cut wordcount or not, and upon re-read, I’ve discovered how many plot threads I wove in repeatedly because I couldn’t remember if they existed yet or not.

Pulling out of the hole is giving me a lot more clarity. But on top of that, I discovered some seriously exciting stuff:

I’m 60% complete with MIRRORPASS edits. That’s up from 54% when I started the 6-AM Editing Challenge, and now that I’m over the middle of the novel, I think the rest will come much faster.

During edits of the last sequence, I cut 4,500 words. This is HUGE. Since the beginning of this draft I’ve struggled over and over to cut wordcount. The lowest I’ve been was 95K, but now I’m down to 92K. All I need is to drop below 90K and I’ll be set wordcount-wise.

Only eight chapters remain.

Together, they make up two sequences.

Out of the remaining edits, I have about four scenes I’ve already identified for cutting. And I don’t mean scenes that need to be rewritten from scratch—I mean scenes that are going to be murdered and never revived. Goodbye, darlings.

However, I will need to do a lot of rewriting, because of issues with the climax that have bugged me since eternity. This may slow things down: rewrites require a lot of brainstorming and careful plotting. On the other hand, I’ve added so much support for myself, I feel like the ending is ready to spill out and finish itself.

And best of all? I have less than three weeks before graduation. Thanks to the amazing flexibility of my workplace, I’m expecting to have two hours every morning in which to write. If I’m smart and I stick to the challenge, and if God is gracious, there’s actually a possibility I’ll finish this draft by early June.

As for the rest of this week? I’m still organizing. I’ve realized how much stuff occurred in the last sequence that needs to be organized before moving on, so I’ll be tweaking those scenes and prepping for the upcoming Dark Moment sequence. Next week, I’ll start tackling it.

Any triumphs for you guys? Any fails?

Truly and always,

-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge -- Week 5 Recap

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2011

• Up at 10:00 (I’m on break, so this was more so a “catch up on sleep” than “get up at six” day.)
• Writing by 1:00
• Opened Chapter 19 word doc, poked around a minute, was listening to my MIRRORPASS soundtrack and a new song I’ve discovered, “Be The One” by Moby, when I had a curious urge to look at chapter 17. Yes. The one I’ve been procrastinating about.
• Opened chapter 17. Started line edits at 1:30. Realized I was in the perfect mood to tackle this tricky chapter. Edited like crazy. Keyboard trouble slowed down my progress, as did a few pauses for research, but I loved the new way the chapter was turning out.
• By 2:30 I was onto the final scene of the chapter, and had to stop when family came over for Easter.
• Back to writing by 4:30 and continued editing chapter 17.
• Finished chapters 17 and my writing challenge for the day at 5:00! Awesome progress. I managed once again to add 200 words to a chapter (she said, sarcastically) despite having made other cuts throughout the chapter. However, I made some major progress in building up the believability of this chapter. Am pumped. Not expecting to get much work done tomorrow, however, as it’s a work day. So we’ll see.

TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2011

• Up at 6:30
• What I decided to try and do instead of writing before work was print out hardcopies of material I know needs line edits or review and go over it on my work break. Today, I printed out the next sequence (dark moment!) and reviewed it. That was really helpful; it got me excited about the next bout of revisions.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27th, 2011

• Up at 7:00
• Downstairs and ready to write by 8:00 but had to wait for the computer to open up. Writing by 8:20
• Similar to with Monday, I was listening to my soundtrack and poking around chapter 19 trying to figure out which scenes to merge, when I suddenly knew I wanted to take the pukish scene I wrote last weekend, put it in a new setting, change the argument completely around, and use it as a segue into my final two (already written and pristine scenes.)
• Wrote like mad. It was perfect. All the extra puke writing that I’ve been doing lately worked toward this scene; it got all my ideas in place. This wrote like a dream.
• Finished at 10. After an hour and a half of writing, I’d done 1,500 words for the one scene, and I’m scrapping the pukish scene entirely. Now Friday I can focus on updating my ambush scenes and finishing this sequence!

THURSDAY, APRIL 28th, 2011

Another work day, no writing done. Didn’t have a chance to review my hardcopy pages.

FRIDAY, APRIL 29th, 2011

• Started writing by 9:30
• Took me a little while to figure out what I was doing today. I had two(ish) scenes at the end of the chapter that, essentially, needed to be updated with current plot threads and given a light edit, but I also felt like I needed to weave a specific plot thread in here.
  
• Rewrote the intro into the ambush scene
• Cut two scenes!
  
• Updated the ambush scene and tweaked the end to have higher significance
  
• Wove in the new plot thread
  
• Finished the chapter--and the sequence--and ACT II of Mirrorpass--at 11am.

WOO!

Maybe it's a little early to say the sequence is "finished" per se. The last couple chapters are still a bit raw. I also feel that in this sequence, when I kept a scene from the previous draft, I just skimmed it and haven't really updated it enough; some of the arguments and internal motivations are off. I feel that I need to pull back some to get a better view of the bigger picture, and go over this sequence again looking at those issues.

For the moment, though, I'm moving on. The new sequence goals should be up soon; a lot of this week may be spent in organization, as I am in desperate need of a big picture view of things.

I'll probably come back to this past sequence a few more times in following weeks. In the meantime I get to move on to:

THE CAPTURE SEQUENCE

Otherwise known as the pre-climax/dark moment.This is when I segue from ACT II to ACT III. From reading some of this sequence in hard-copy, I've realized how much work needs to be done (shouldn't have been surprised) but also how much I get to cut. So yay, I'm excited about that. Also, this is first of the last three sequences, and my very last sequence--resolution--won't need much work at all; I rewrote it ages ago, and it's one of the better parts of my story.

The bottom line going forward?

Two sequences left.

Three months until my self-set deadline is up.

Bring it on.


(I hope everyone else recovered from their fails as well as I did?)


Truly and always,
-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge -- Week 5 Goals

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

I thought it would be easier to measure progress and such if I posted goals at the beginning of each week, and wrap-up posts at the end.

Right now, I’m working on wrapping up this sequence. That means a couple things. First, I need to edit chapter 17, which I’ve been avoiding this whole time because it will take a very specific mindset to fix it the way I know it needs to be fixed. Second, I need to go over chapter 18 a few more times and polish, but it’s otherwise edited and solid.

Finally, I need to work on chapter 19. This is my major goal for the week. The breakdown is

• Scene 1: Rewritten to update plot, but still needs some work. It’s a bit raw.

• Scene 2: Completely new. Reads like mind-vomit. Needs a lot of work. Specifically, to read less like mind-vomit. (Also, there’s a newish character who has bizarre motivations sometimes, and I tried playing around with him in this scene, so as I continue with the chapter I’ll probably need to go back and tweak this until I get his actions right.)

• Scene 3: Mystery bridge scene? I have three or four ways I could play this. I want my MC, Aria, to have a chance and deal with some new plot threads I’ve introduced, but I’m also trying to merge some scenes from cut chapters here, and I’m ALSO trying to decide which direction this chapter should lead us in to solve a feasibility issue with the climax. Lots of muddling may occur. The wordcount in this chapter is already pretty high.

• Scene 4: Maybe add a short external POV snippet? I have a plot thread I’m trying to weave, but again, the wordcount is pretty high here, and it will all depend on how pacing shakes down anyway.

• Scene 5: Ambush scene! End of sequence! Segue into climax! This is already written, mostly solid, and just needs general line edits and a few plot updates. When I get here, I’ll be sky high. (Barely quenches an unprofessional *squee*)

And, because you guys won’t know unless I tell you, I’m also cutting between one and three scenes from this chapter completely.

The cool news is, it's Monday, so I can tell you that I already met one of my goals for the week. Very excited! Check back at the end of this week when I'll post the day-by-day breakdown.

How is your guys' challenge going?


Truly and always,
-Creative A

A Challenge Fail

I'm a bit blocked writing this post. How do you admit you've been failing at your own challenge? It's been three weeks since I finished my first successful week at my 6-AM Editing Challenge, and after that--well, I didn't have success.

Not to say that I stopped completely; I got up early a lot of mornings, and I did some writing. But no challenge writing. Nothing I could be accountable for.

There's tons of reasons why. Life happened; I needed some down time; I made a bad choice or two, more life happened. I lost momentum.

The first week was, essentially, my falling apart week, when the momentum went kaput. Week 2 was denial week: "I can still salvage this." Week 3 I realized I was just procrastinating, so I better get it out of my system and get set up to start again.

That's this upcoming week.

Remember the first post that started it all? I'm feeling that way again. Being on my challenge is one of the most gratifying things I've done in ages; I was about 50% less stressed the week where I did good. And I am getting back on this challenge if it kills me.

Because here's what I'm realizing: I'm going to do this, even if I fall flat on my face, even if I do so repeatedly. If that means doing one week of Challenge only to fail for three weeks, to get back up again, that's worth it to me. I really need to do this and I really want to do this, and for me, there's no time to waste.

The good news? Expect Challenge updates from me this week! The bad news is, you can also expect me to fail a few more times, because it's going to take some training to get this down.

Congrats to the people who I know got some of their writing goals accomplished recently. You rock! You inspire me! My book wants to be your book when it grows up!

And for those of you who, like me, had a definite challenge fail...It's okay. No guilt trips here.

Now let's get back on track.




Truly and always,
-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge: Week 1 Recap

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

First off, my apologies for the radio silence. I have the best excuse ever: I was writing. And although I know silence is always suggestive of a fail, in this case, it was actually the result of success.

By Thursday, I was so caught up in either writing or homework that I didn't have time to blog about it. But here's how it went down:

THURSDAY, MARCH 31 -- In my notes I have "wrote 600 words and did some editing to boot." Those were 600 more words on my chapter 18 merger scene, and the edits went back to chapters 14-16 where I was either planting or uprooting tiny plot threads so that my merger scene would flow better. I essentially finished the merger scene that day.

FRIDAY, APRIL 1 -- I finished my novel!

April Fools!

Okay, sorry, bad joke. What actually happened is that homework consumed my morning and I didn't get to writing until the evening. I was dying for a nice long stretch of time when I could sit down and iron out all the pacing and continuity issues I hadn't been able to see in those short 6-AM Challenge bursts. My goal was to rewrite the merger scene, and then write the follow-up scene, which held a lot of necessary dialogue and hammering out of motivations.

I started in chapter 16, planning to read up and through into 18 and iron out all the issues along the way, but then I found myself doing a major overhaul of chapter 16 and then a rewrite of the intro to the merger scene. That's when I had the best surprise of the day--I discovered that I had clarified things so well in chapter 16, that my merger scene could be cut in half, and I didn't need to spend an extra 2,000 words on a scene to try and work it out in dialogue.

That was an exciting moment because with the merger scene done, chapter 18 itself was done.

Yes. I met one of my goals. If you remember, I had three--to begin and finish chapter 18, to rewrite chapter 10, and to edit chapter 17. I also met a bunch of other goals that I discovered along the way.

In the larger scale of things, this means I need to edit chapter 17 and piece together chapter 19, after which I will be done with this sequence--and able to move on to my pre-climax sequence.

That. Is so. Exciting.

So all in all, at the end of the week and the beginning of a new one, I'm declaring my 6-AM Challenge a success.

Where to from here? I'd hoped that if I could make it a week, I could make it a month, so that's my next milestone. For the month of April I will post once- to twice a week on my goals, problems, hangups, daily progress, etc.

And I'd like to invite you to join me. (I don't expect many will but hey, the invitation is out there.) Is there a writing project you can't finish, or start? How about a deadline you've been avoiding? A goal that eludes you? I want to hear about it, I want your company--I want someone to share this crazy editing challenge with.

And for those of you who can't join but just enjoy reading, is there anything else you'd like me to add or explain better in my updates? Do you care which chapter I'm working on? Would it be better if I talked about the craft issues behind the problem that I'm editing?

Because yes, I'm blogging about this for support, but I'm always sharing in the hopes of inspiring or helping you.

Truly and always,
-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge - Wednesday, Week 1

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30

GOALS: Continue writing the merger scene in chapter 18. This is mostly discussion, and I want to move past the "everyone starts talking" part to the nitty gritty, "here's where we go from here part," which is what will clarify how the story is moving forward and what plot actions need to be taken to reach the climax. It's been hard to write, and I need to hash it all out.

LIMITATIONS: Had an assignment due this morning, so before I could begin writing, I had to finish that. And I had to leave for school at 9.

UP AT-- 6:30

STARTED WRITING -- 8:36 (yikes!)

[was too busy to write notes. Normally I need some warmup time...but not today! Imagine crazy typing here]

STOPPED WRITING: 9:17 (double yikes!)

PROGRESS:

I wrote 450 words again--except this time I did it in half an hour.made good progress into the scene. I'm pretty impressed. However, I still haven't managed to get up at 6 once this challenge. So now that I'm getting into the swing of things, tomorrow's goal is: get up at six!

Also, late yesterday after doing my blog post where I talked about ideas for cutting a secondary-POV scene, I actually went ahead and did that. So that's 250 more words cut. I still need to find the best location for the second scene, but I've moved it for now.

AT THE END OF THE DAY:

Well, okay, the writing day went fast. Yet writing consistently and having a schedule is having a big effect, I think, especially since I'm not waffling about whether I'll write or not--I've already decided. The commitment is helping kill procrastination.

The other cool thing is how my brainstorming has gained focus. I tend to brainstorm about my novels a lot, something I attribute to long commutes, but since I don't normally have much time to write, I think about the same scene over and over. Now I've found myself being able to brainstorm about solutions to other problems in the novel.

With that in mind, I have another edit goal to add to my list: there's a discussion in chapter 3 that has important implications for the story, but one beta commented that it resolves too abruptly. I've been thinking about this since her comments and I think she's right. After some brainstorming today, I realized that I could put the resolution at a different time, say a few days later. Much of the discussion will stay as is but I'll need to rewrite the intro to that scene and make sure the mood shift is consistent.

That's another goal, but for tomorrow, I still want to focus on this Chapter 18 merger scene.

Truly and always,

-Creative A

6-AM Challenge -- Tuesday, Week 1

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

TUESDAY MARCH 28th

GOALS:

Write (or at least start writing) the beginning scene of chapter 18. Although I didn't get any real writing-related work done yesterday, I had one good brainstorming session about the issues in chapter 18 that were still bugging me. I came up with one good solution, that ties in some other new shifts in plotting I've done. So in sum? Write the merger scene involving about three other conversations I'm cutting, and really clarify the feasibility by bringing in this new plot thread.

I WAS UP BY -- 6:10

STARTED WRITING -- 7:14

TIME LIMITATIONS -- Today is a work day and I have to leave at 8:15! This is the scary part of the challenge; what if I get into the flow, and then I have to leave? We'll see.

WE GET TO THE WRITING

7:14 -- Open all related documents, skim through for information that will need to be included and information I want to avoid repeating. Re-read Stickys with brainstorm notes.

7:28 -- Open word doc for new scene & chapter. Started writing pretty fast, making good progress, and I like the opening direction this has.

...[was too busy writing to take notes. Just imagine lots of frenzied typing here.]

8:15 -- The alarm went off. I did manage to stop writing, which I was proud of, but I was also a bit bummed at how short an hour seemed.

GOALS MET/UNMET:

Wrote 500 words of Chapter 18, scene 1. This is definitely a start, although I didn't get as far into it as I'd (wishfully) hoped. And I've been brainstorming about the scene all day, so I'm eager to dive back into it tomorrow morning.

AT THE END OF THE DAY:

My new material is pretty solid. However I'm realizing that work days won't give me much time and I should expect smaller progresses. Also realizing I need to remember this is a cumulative process--if by the end of the week I'm done with even one chapter, that will be an accomplishment.

Also, during my brainstorming throughout the day, I realized I could cut two small secondary-POV scene. One is pretty but adds little to the story. Another is important foreshadowing, but it happens early on, and I realized it's me tipping the cards too soon. Now I have to figure out where exactly it should go. So I'm adding this to the goals list.

How has everyone else's goals gone so far this week?

Truly and always,

-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge -- Sunday, Week 1

BACKSTORY

What's the 6-AM Editing Challenge? You can read the backstory here, but in a nutshell, it's me getting up at 6-AM every morning and writing, in an attempt to finish edits on my novel, MIRRORPASS, by this summer. Read about my novel on the WIP page.

WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING ON

At the start of this challenge, I have been working on the turning point sequence, which covers chapters 14-19 of MIRRORPASS and propels us down the road to the climax. So far within the sequence, I'm up to chapter 17.

And now begin the challenge!

SUNDAY, MARCH 17, 2011

Since today is a Sunday, the first day of the challenge, and the next edits require some brainstorming, today is a planning day. I need to work on any of these three things:

• Major edits to chapter 10, in preparation for an unexpected beta opportunity. My last beta told me the chapter gets too long and looses it's focus and believability after a certain point. I need to figure out how to cut and smooth out the sequence so it flows better, regains believability, and fixes the main problems my beta pointed out.

• Rewrite and revise chapter 17. This is a "non-pov" chapter, so to speak, and it jumps out of the timeline of the story to set us up for later chapters. The problem is, it has a scene with repetitive plot threads that I need to cut and move to chapter 18, so I want to tackle 18 first.

• Tackle chapter 18. (Did you catch that humor?) I did some major plot readjustments earlier in this sequence, but this chapter is actually where the adjustments start effecting the chapters around it.
  I need to take three scenes from chapters 15, 16, and 19, and merge the important plot threads in one totally brand new scene at the beginning of chapter 18. Then the second scene needs heavy revisions and merging with a scene from chapter 17. Finally, for the last scene of the chapter, I'm again merging it with a scene from chapter 19.
  And I may need to write a lot of fresh material to tie all this together. So there's a lot of organization I need to do, here, before I even begin writing.

Let's see how I do!

RISING TIME -- 6:30

That's acceptable, since I need some time to get used to the early morning, and a honestly a better start than I hoped. Being that it's Sunday I planned on spending most of the morning on non-writing, Christian-related goals and getting to work by noon. (This was one of my big goals in the original post about the challenge.)

FAST FORWARD TO WHEN I STARTED WRITING --

Spent time blogging and getting organized for writing.

Printed out all of chapter 10 and posted around room. Realized I need to look at my other beta's comments on this chapter and identify what I really think needs to be cut/revised.

Scanned my sequence board to familiarize myself with the scenes in chapter 17 and 18. Modified my goals for the beginning of chapter 18 based on the fact that I'm not really sure which scenes I'm supposed to be merging (one of my Stickys got lost!)

Turned on MIRRORPASS playlist. Motivation time.

Printed out the scenes I definitely knew were going to be merged into chapter 18.

Thought really hard about what had been on that lost Sticky note.

Got discouraged that I'd made so little progress, even though this was just a planning day anyway.

Thought a bit harder and poked through my numerous MIRRORPASS files and folders.

Aha! Remembered what was on the Sticky-note!

Quickly wrote some notes to self so I wouldn't forget again. Things connected. Went through printouts highlighting and making notes, then abruptly had an idea of how to fix chapter 10 and went kamikaze on it, using black sharpie to censor out sections to cut, and red pen to tell how I'll connect the pieces after the cut. Then I just went on and edited the whole hardcopy. I got a ton of work done within the space of an hour.

After that I paused to regroup and print out remaining scenes needed for the chapter 18 merge. Read a few writing craft blog posts (this helps keep me stimulated while calming me down after a frenzy of cutting, so I can come back with some focus.)

Got distracted by some blog posts. Then life happened and I had to leave the writing zone for a while.

Finally came back, went over my crazy scattering of pages and notes, and realized that although it was late, I had everything I needed to edit chapter 10, and everything except a printout of one scene that I needed to edit chapter 18.

AT THE END OF THE DAY --

I'd say I had mild success on my first day. I got interrupted twice by life, and twice it really killed my progress. On the other hand, I can jump right in and edit chapter 10 now, and I'm almost ready to revise chapter 18. There's still an issue about starting the edits for this chapter that I can't quite put my finger on.

I think in the middle of all this merging chaos, I've been overlooking a plot thread that's still essential to the scene. And maybe a feasibility issue? Knowing myself, this is something I need to brainstorm on when I have the scene open in front of me. So I think my goal for tomorrow is to begin writing the first scene of chapter 18.

GOALS MET/UNMET --

Worked on two out of my possible three writing needs

Completed one of out the three

Half-finished one out of the three

Definitely prepared to start writing tomorrow on chapter 10, though I'm unsure if I did enough prep for 18.

Didn't quite manage my time well enough to get everything else accomplished.

Didn't get to bed until 11:20 -- not good, need to move that up to 10, or I won't make it up by 6.

So all in all, for a first day, I think this went well! It's clear that I need to get the actual schedule down, however, to make the progress I want. So those are new goals for tomorrow.

Truly and always,

-Creative A

6-AM Editing Challenge

I have decided to try something crazy. It has been a full year since the day I looked at MIRRORPASS and said to myself, "this is the novel I am going to query," the day someone showed interest in my barely-finished first draft, the day I felt like God had encouraged me to have hope for this story, and the day I vowed to edit like crazy until it was done.

A year later, and I am 54% through.

Good grief, you may ask, what has she been doing?

Well, about six months of that time was wasted time when it comes to writing, and that was my fault; I let the novel sit for a few months while I finished my semester, then over the summer I got caught up in social life, and it wasn't until last semester that I started editing again for real. Since that time I wrote some missing scenes (draft 2) revised a few major plot faux pas, got feedback on the edits (draft 3) and started over at the beginning, writing and editing and polishing and getting feedback, and mostly rewriting each chapter until all the plot issues were gone and it shone (draft 4) which is the one I'm now 54% through.

During all this I was simultaneously studying as a full-time college student, peer tutoring, plus--oh wait, I said all this HERE. Except now you can add a part time job to the list. (Yes, I know! I vowed not to get a job! I declared it would kill me! But they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.)

Anyway, anyway, back to my point.

This is taking too long. I love my novel, but it's time to finish and start querying and move on to the next shiny idea. It's time to really engage in writing as a career and start attending conferences and building up my platform. It's time to dump the old pot of cooled, musty mental coffee and start percolating a fresh new one. It's time--

And I'm not ready.

MIRRORPASS is unfinished. The scariest, most frustrating aspect of it all (besides the fact that I wasted those early months) is that now I don't have the time to catch up, simply can't fit all these things into my schedule. I keep telling myself I have to do it all, be it all--and I'm sure all the adults out there will chorus with me, "It doesn't work!"

Something is always undone.

So what's a girl to do?

First, I set a deadline with a reward at the end. (This always stimulates me to figure out how I'll reach the reward and I sort of forget it's a deadline.) Sometime this summer, late June through early August, my big plan is to attend a writer's conference. SCBWI was my original idea but now travel is looking a bit too expensive, so I'm on the hunt for substitutes. (Suggestions, please? I want a 3-day conference, not a weeklong workshop.)

Then after setting my deadline/reward...

I got stuck.

Same old issue: no time, no time, no time. Over Spring Break I had a momentary breakdown where, in frustration at not being able to write even on my so called break, I went to my bed and cried out to God about how much I hated not writing and how frustrated I was. I reminded Him that He was the one to give me this passion in the first place. I reminded Him that He was the one who promised me to seek Him first, which I had been focusing on along with writing, and that everything else would come *after. I reminded God that He'd been the one to encourage me one year ago, and I needed His provision now.

This might seem odd to someone who isn't a Christian, but one thing God has shown me is that He always has solutions. In the case of the impossible, He's the only one who has solutions. And that's what I needed.

Right around the time I dragged myself into a sitting position, my mother walked in, took a look at my face, and asked what was wrong. As I spoke with her I blurted a crazy idea that had come to mind--"I'm thinking I should just get at six in the morning," I told her, "before work and school and everything, so that I have time to spend with God and to write."

She said, "I think that's a good idea."

And all at once I realized I was desperate enough and determined enough to go for it. So here I am. Day one of the 6-AM Editing Challenge. I have no idea how long this will last, but I have three milestones:

Make it through a week.

Make it through the end of semester.

Have MIRRORPASS query-ready by the time I go to the writer's conference.

And I plan to blog about it, posting progress and hangups and whatever writing-as-craft nuggets I stumble upon along the way. I expect to post once each evening for the first week (to see if I can keep it up) and then one big progress report each weekend afterwards.

So, to all my writer friends, root for me! To all my Christian friends, pray for me! And to everyone universally who is writing or editing or blocked--if you want to join, or modify the Challenge to your own schedule, I'd love to hear your progress in the comments. Misery loves company.

Alright, that last bit about misery was a joke.

Truly and always,

-Creative A

*This is a paraphrase of the Bible verse found in Matthew chapter 6, verse 33. And recently God has used this verse to show me that if I spend time in the mornings digging into the word of God, like I want to but have been afraid to when I have loads of homework, He will provide a means for me to meet my commitments.