Monday, May 24, 2010

Mission Accomplished

So you may have noticed that I wasn't around last week. It was an unscheduled leave of absence due to me being sick as a dog and not on the computer much at all. If you will recall oh, so long ago (read a week ago Thursday) I mentioned wanting to finish the first draft of Out of the Shadows and spend some time sewing.

I'm pleased to report that after keeping my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard, I did it. I wrote over 4k words that day and finished the first draft.

You'll notice that my word meter shows me 15k short for the total. I may still reach that 80k goal. I guessed on the total length. I originally thought 100k but I don't think I'm that wordy. Some of the scenes didn't come together for me as I wrote. I couldn't find the right words, etc. So I got the gist of the scene down with the dialogue. Now I have to go back and flesh those scenes out, adding description, internal dialogue, action, etc.

Plus, I've also changed the story arc since I started the book. That means that I have to add a bunch of stuff throughout for that. All in all, I'm confident that I'll reach the 80k goal or darn close to it. As you can see, I still have a lot of work to do, but now that the whole story is down on paper and I know what's going on with it, I'm hoping it will go quickly. I'm giving myself 4 weeks to go back in and add all this stuff.

I don't really know how long it will take but I'm going to be pushing myself these next two months to accomplish my goal of having it finished in time for RWA national conference so that I can pitch it to an agent. Today is the day for me to make my appointment so wish me luck that I can get in with my first choice.

By the way, I did reward myself with some time to sew and I made a couple of fabric journal covers. Here they are below. They fit over a composition notebook. They were fun and easy and I think I'm going to offer them as a class at work.


So what have you been up to? Please share your news!

7 comments:

Suzanne Johnson said...

Congrats! LOL. Maybe I need to get sick so I can get butt-in-chair and finish cranking out my w.i.p. Good luck with getting a pitch appt at Nationals--let us know who you get!

Stacey Joy Netzel said...

Congratulations on finishing your goal!

Gale Stanley said...

Congrats, you got all that done while you were sick. I love the journal covers. You should sell them. I bought a few similiar things on Ebay.

Susan Macatee said...

You sound like me, Riley! I always write short scenes then have to flesh them out and add in more to make my word count!
Good luck with this!
As for me, I've just finished a requested revision and sent it off to my editor. I also submitted two short stories to a magazine.
But I won't be idle while I wait for replies. Got three new projects still in the works.

Maeve Greyson said...

I'm glad you're feeling better, Riley. Congratulations on meeting your goals. I'm still stalled short of my goal of 90,000 words (85,138). I'm ready to take a tazer to my characters. ARGH! I'll get the wicked little beasts jump started one way or another. I'm too close to give up now.

Mary Ricksen said...

Glad your better. Great way to spend your time sick!

Rachel Lynne said...

I wondered where you were! Glad you're feeling better and that you finished! I like the notebook covers.
I got very little done last week as last minute issues arose over my brother-in-law's party. But Friday was great since I got notice my book was accepted. I floated through the weekend then spent today sending my contract back, filling out forms, and pondering possible blurbs.

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