Monday, June 27, 2011

"That's it?"

As I predicted, I spent most of the weekend working on my new entry to the screenplay competition, so I didn't write as much on the novel. I did, however, add a new 1083 words, which puts me over the 19% mark for completion of the first draft.
I tore my hair out for the first part of the weekend. Literally no concepts were coming to me for the screenplay prompt (genre: fantasy, subject: a natural disaster, character: an airport security guard). I eventually realized that the reason was that I was attacking it from a scenario and plot angle instead of letting the plot grow from a character. So I finally picked a concept and just started writing a character walking into the situation, focusing on who she was.

Thankfully, the writing flowed after that. I finished the first draft Saturday, polished it a little bit Sunday, and turned it in with hours to spare. Now I wait for a confirmation that the competition received my entry without any issues, and after that, I wait until July 18 to hear if I made the cut to the final round. I feel pretty good about my chances; I really like what I turned in.

Got a bit of a slap of cold reality yesterday when my mother called. I told her I had written between 18,000 and 19,000 words on my novel. Her response? "That's it?"

Then she asked how much of the novel that number represented. I told her about 20%. Her response? "That's it?"

So anytime I think I'm getting a little too cocky or a little too happy with my progress, I know where to go!

2 comments:

Jo Eberhardt said...

Non-writers just don't really understand, do they? I think you're doing amazingly well. I started my WIP about the same time that you started yours, and I'm only up to 8500 words. I'd hate to think how unimpressed your Mum would be with my efforts!

Congrats on getting your screenplay done - fingers crossed for you.

Leanne D. Baldwin said...

Hi, Jo! Thanks! I was pretty impressed with my progress until yesterday's phone call, lol.

I think it's like you said--she doesn't write, so she really has no concept of how much time it takes to churn out even 500 words at a time. So in her mind, she may actually think that a first draft could be done in a month, easily.

Thanks for the well-wishes on the contest! I'm hopeful!