Finishing a Story and February Goals

The story I started over a decade ago is finally complete! I printed the first complete draft of MS:T and it is a beautiful thing.

It’s a first complete draft that I can say I am really proud of. The things that came out in the writing, those surprises that I didn’t plan for even a month ago when I redid my plot board, were really cool. There were things that happened organically as the characters came together in places I hadn’t planned them to and I’m excited to see where those lead in the next draft. The one thing I really struggled with in this story was writing the ending. Looking at it, even though it ended where the story was driving it to go, something about it still feels off. It feels like something is missing or something didn’t arrive at the end the way it needed to. It’s an area I will definitely want to focus on in the revision process when I pick the story up again. It’s funny, when I was working on the last few chapters and trying to close out each character’s piece of the journey, it felt like some of the characters were hiding something from me. I’d try to poke and prod them, to write them into their ending, but it was almost as if they were smirking at me, because they knew I was missing something. I think that some of them are holding secrets that I’ve yet to discover. I’m going to set the story aside for now and hopefully when I come back to them they’ll be ready to let me in on what I missed. (Side note: as I was holding the printed manuscript in my hands and reflecting on the story, I realize it might be that my characters have so many plans, I’ve actually just completed the first book in what needs to be a duology.)

Once I’d finished the draft last week, I took time to set my February goals. The next story I’ll be writing to completion is MS:L, which is a story I began last year around this time. The characters found me during a writing exercise last January at the writing retreat with my peer critique group. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am to write this story because this story is going to be full of magic. It’ll be the first one I write in the realm of all the stories that inspire and awe me. I have to admit, I am slightly intimidated to write this story. But, I am not going to let that stop me. This is the story I became a writer in order to write. ⭐️ I’m going to spread the work on this manuscript over two months worth of writing time instead of the one I did this month with MS:T. Where MS:T was nearly complete when I began working on it, MS:L is sitting right now at only about 8,000 words. It is going to need a lot of writing time to get it to the 70,000 word first draft I want it to be and I don’t want to crunch myself so much on the time that I sacrifice the integrity of the story or the journey of my characters. I also need more time because I want to do my research to get the magical elements that will be involved correct. I am so darned excited to start this project! Excuse me while I dive in. 🙂

In case you haven’t heard it today, you are more than enough. Share the message when you can. It’s one everybody needs to hear. 🙂

Happy Writing!