Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Still making steady progress, having added another 1072 words yesterday. Sometimes I find myself wondering how many of the words I'm banging out every day will survive into the second draft, but I suspect that such speculation is a threat to progress. After all, it's hard to justify writing words that may just end up on the novelist's equivalent of the cutting room floor. So let's not think about it, shall we? I am very close to 22% finished with the first draft, and that's something to celebrate!
Today, I would really like to get to what I feel is the end of the "first act" of the story, the point where the protagonist makes the decision that catalyzes the rest of the plot. I think I may be coming to it later than I should be, from a technical standpoint, and that may be something I have to correct in the next draft. But I have been pretty careful to make sure that every scene has actually moved the plot forward, so I do feel good about the plotting so far. And everyone who has read the draft has indicated that they are finding it gripping, so it doesn't seem to be a saggy story.

I don't know--maybe it's just fine. Who cares? I need a completed draft before I start dissecting the darn thing. Onward!

2 comments:

Jo Eberhardt said...

"I need a completed draft before I start dissected the darn thing."

Ain't that the truth! I think this is one of the biggest roadblocks to overcome when writing a first draft -- our own natural tendency to start analysing and "correcting".

Congrats on nearly being a quarter of the way done!

Leanne D. Baldwin said...

Hi Jo! I already have a tendency to "rewrite as I go," believe it or not. Can you imagine how fast I'd be if I didn't do that?! :D

Thanks! I will start to feel a sense of relief when I get past the end of the "beginning." To me, that will be a huge milestone.