{"id":419,"date":"2017-05-03T12:36:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T11:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shortspark.com\/?p=419"},"modified":"2017-05-03T12:40:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T11:40:31","slug":"writing-update-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shortspark.com\/writing-update-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing update #4"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>The struggle is real people!<\/h2>\n<p>The last two weeks has\u00a0seen my day job take over to the extent that I got very little writing done. It is ironic that we were working on a pitch that if successful, would allow me MORE time for writing, so I felt the loss of the two weeks justified.<\/p>\n<p>Just before the madness kicked off, I got to the end of my novel. This is the point where I would normally have jumped for joy and done the proverbial cartwheels, but I didn&#8217;t celebrate for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I was thrown into the all-consuming pitch and had no time to reflect on the fact that I wrote my way to the end of a novel.<\/li>\n<li>I had left quite a number of TBW (To be written) sections in there, so it didn&#8217;t feel like a first draft.<\/li>\n<li>Partly because of the above reason, and also because I concentrated mainly on action and dialogue, my word count stands at a paltry 67 000 words. This is not quite enough for the genre and arguably not enough for a novel to get your teeth into.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So I&#8217;ve spent this week going back over each scene in Scrivener, summarising the main beats of each using the synopsis section. This I plan to print out and read to get an overview of where I am at, as well as show some of the more glaring plot holes.<\/p>\n<p>I am sure there are many.<\/p>\n<h2>Things I learned this week:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Life happens while you&#8217;re busy making other plans. Enough said.<\/li>\n<li>My ambition for the amount of writing I&#8217;ll be able to do with business, kids etc. might be a touch unrealistic!<\/li>\n<li>I learned that the work really starts at this point, where you&#8217;re kinda done, but you&#8217;re not. I have a feeling I&#8217;m either going to love the editing process or hate it. Marmite.<\/li>\n<li>There are many many good writers everywhere, lurking just underneath the edge of true discovery. I&#8217;m constantly amazed at the quality of\u00a0writing I come across in the writer&#8217;s meetings I attend. Case in point is this lady:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/chantelleatkins.com\/\" class=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Chantell Atkins<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Loved this freaky short story of hers:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wattpad.com\/384306292-leaf-a-short-story-leaf\" class=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Leaf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shirleygolden.net\/index.html\" class=\"external\" target=\"_blank\">Shirley Golden<\/a>, an established author who&#8217;s already been a tremendous help to me in my fledgeling writing career.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I have a mammoth post on plotting vs pantsing brewing on the stove, hoping to get that out this week.<\/p>\n<p>Hope you\u2019re rockin\u2019 in your writing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The struggle is real people! The last two weeks has\u00a0seen my day job take over to the extent that I got very little writing done. It is ironic that we were working on a pitch that if successful, would allow me MORE time for writing, so I felt the loss of the two weeks justified. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[20],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v14.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Writing update #4 | Shortspark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/shortspark.com\/writing-update-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Writing update #4 | Shortspark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The struggle is real people! The last two weeks has\u00a0seen my day job take over to the extent that I got very little writing done. It is ironic that we were working on a pitch that if successful, would allow me MORE time for writing, so I felt the loss of the two weeks justified. 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