I am writing this month’s update from the beach. Anyone who knows me should know that I love water. It has a calming effect like nothing else, and boy, have I needed it. This month has been full of pivots and changed plans, two things I do not do all that well with. However, I am back into Surrealist and am enjoying reading through that project.
Progress
I finished Project C, or more so, I stopped working on it. The piece still needs a lot of work, and I didn’t draft it to the end, but instead finished out with a thick outline and will talk it out with my writing group at our next meeting.
I drafted about 1k a day on average, which is the most I’ve done in a while. It’s less than I was thinking I would do, but I switched back to Surrealist earlier than anticipated and cut the word count on the first draft of Project C down significantly.
I am about a quarter of the way through rereading Surrealist. This is likely the section that will be most greatly affected in revisions. This is abnormal, as most times the end changes more than the beginning. However, everything about Surrealist is a bit topsy-turvy.
Surrealist stands out against my other projects in another interesting way. Aside from spelling and punctuation issues, about half or so of the comments are positive, and many of them just say, “I love this.” As I go into this revision, I am bolstered by that fact. My writing group liked this book even in its partially baked state, where I didn’t really know what I was doing yet. That is beyond encouraging.
Liesure
This month has had its fair share of leisure, namely this week at the beach. This is the first full week of vacation that I’ve taken in over a year. I think I desperately needed it, but I am once again finding that I need a vacation from my vacation. This is the reality of spending time with people as an introvert. It doesn’t matter how much you love people; there is an energy cost to every interaction.
As for what I am reading and watching, lately I’ve been watching back through the newest season of Reacher and getting into the holiday spirit with romance movies. For books, I’ve started reading a couple of novellas and had hoped to read through a bunch of them while at the beach. However, between walking on the beach, playing pickleball and boulle, and hanging out with my family, I barely had time to work on Surrealist and had even less time to read the books I brought. I did start reading Phantastes by George Macdonald as I read The Magician’s Nephew and wanted to read the author who so inspired C. S. Lewis. It is fascinating to me that the start of Phantastes is so similar to a short story that I wrote.
What I’m Learning
Revising Surrealist is going to be difficult because of all the thinking and decisions I have to make. However, on the actual writing part, I don’t think it’ll be all that complicated. Once I make my decisions, I should be able to run with them. I am hopeful that I will be able to make these decisions before even jumping into the revisions.
Looking Forward
Surrealist will likely take up the rest of my year. I would love to get it done before Christmas and send it out to one of my writing group members for a lightning round read through and commentary, and then get back and do a line edit around new years. The line edit will likely take a lot of work as it is very involved, but I’m hopeful I can finish it in a couple of weeks and then send it out in January.
After Surrealist, I will do another round of Project C. Then, I will start drafting Project Rose. When Surrealist is done with my betas, I will apply comments and start querying it as soon as it is ready.
I am itching to send Surrealist to agents. I want to enjoy the process of revising it, but the larger part of myself is dying to get it ready to send out.
That’s all for now,
Naomi
Leave a Reply