This Week: A TP Update

Hello, everyone! I'm officially back! Very happy to be here again :)

Rest assured, I'm working on some more meaty articles to feed to you soon, but I thought that in the meantime I'd kick the week off with a nice, easy update.

Basically, the middle ten days of June were out of action for exams and assessment. Thankfully, that is all over and passed and went much better than expected (though this is usually the case, so you'd think I'd learn to raise my expectations!), and now I can use the last ten days of June for writing again. Ah, such symmetry! :D

Possibly the biggest news is that I'm thinking of entering a competition for a manuscript assessment. The only catch (besides trying to 'describe creatively' what makes my manuscript stand out from the rest in under 100 words *pulls face*) is that I don't actually have a manuscript. So I'm making a mad dash and aiming to get TP finished by the end of July. I'm currently just shy of 18,000 words, so that's another ~65,000 words in a little over four weeks. Can we all say 'eek!'?

Really, though, I can't wait to have the draft finished. I want to know what the story is /about/, already, and how it's going to work.

What?! (I can hear the screams from here.) You don't know what it's about?

:D

Yes, I know what it's about. But only in general terms. I love this description of the writing process that Lisa Shearin posted:

First drafts are for learning what your novel is about. Revisions are for working with that knowledge to enlarge or enhance an idea, or reform it.

I love it. But it also means that trying to figure out what makes my story 'stand out' is jolly difficult without a complete first draft. Unfortunately, I only have until July 4 to enter the competition... And I don't think I'm going to have a full draft by then.

However, I am aiming for 5 chapters a week, and another 10 chapters should put me nearly at the middle of the book. So that should give me at least something more to work with than I have now :D

Wish me luck!