College Student is recovered from his surgery…Junior High Kid is back at school (though if the school calendar had been left up to me, kids in Iowa City would’ve gone to school the whole week right before Christmas and had this whole week off rather than had partial weeks on either side of the two-week break)…so there’s no excuse for me not to get back into my routine, too. (Well, except for the fact it’s Caucus Night.)
It’s not like I didn’t do any writing over the last two weeks. I spent a lot of time (over the last month, really…not just the last two weeks) figuring out my next draft of T.J.’s Story. I even started on the new draft yesterday. Who was that who writes a quick first draft and then throws it away and starts fresh on the second draft? When I first heard that I thought, “I could never do that.” (I don’t throw much of anything away. You should see my hard drive!) But when I started this second draft, I started with a blank screen and a brand new file. I’m not just revising in my old document. In fact, I STILL haven’t reread the draft I wrote in November. I may not reread it. Everything I need to move forward is in my stack of note cards that lists each of my scenes and the goal, conflict, setting, twists/turns and disasters for each scene. I don’t have a note card for every single scene in the book…there may still be some surprises as I work my way through this draft. In fact, there will definitely be some surprises because I have post-it notes stuck to some of my note cards reminding me that I still need to make a decision regarding the outcome of a couple of these scenes…and once I make those decisions, there will be new scenes sandwiched between the post-it note note cards and the next note card.
But I have a plan! And my plan is to write 5 pages a day, every day (even when my in-laws are visiting next week and even when I go visit my dad), until this draft is done. No e-mail or LJ until I’ve got 2 1/2 pages.
