Back in the Writing

I’m back in the writing, walking the woods of this manuscript and it feels magical to be in it. Every time I enter this story, I am grateful to be writing it.

MS:D (manuscript key discussion here) is set in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and it is one of my very favorite places to be. Driving through those mountains is something I look forward to every year, especially in the summer and fall. The fullness of the mountains in summer with the shadows of clouds on the lush green trees and the brilliant colors of fall with the crisp air coming through the windows just cannot be beat. Last week I spent time working through act one of this story and making sure I set the scenes in the mountains well. The characters had their paths pretty well set and needed minor adjustments to what was happening and what was shown. I focused on filling in the details about where they were, making sure it made sense to the reader as my characters moved in and out of different scenes. If the first draft of writing is like an outline of a drawing, the revisions are always like going back and adding in all of the colors. I did most of the work last week in my paper revisions and only transferred a few chapters of those revisions to my scrivener document. Getting onto the computer last week to work was difficult, but having the revisions done on paper will mean that the work I have to do when I get to my computer should go smoothly. I’m starting this week behind where I wanted to be, but it was a lovely week, so I’ll take the delays. 🙂

This week I want to finish the revisions to act one both on paper and in my scrivener doc. I’ve got about four chapters to go in order to accomplish that goal and then I’ll be back on track with the timeline I had set for myself. I really love doing the revisions on paper and in scrivener. It continues to prove helpful in getting a deeper read on my characters and what’s happening in the story. I actually found that the work I was doing on paper, where I was focused on the mountains and the scenes, made it easier for me to hear the characters as I was typing in my story. While the action around what they did and how they interacted with one another didn’t change much with this revision, the way that they interacted sets up what will happen later much better. There were subtle things in the way they spoke or what they did to support one another that deepens their connections and motives. I like that the subtle differences between what was there in the previous draft to what is there now will make such a large impact later on in the story. I’m excited to keep chipping away at this draft to find the next better version underneath.

In case no one has told you today, you are more than enough.

Happy Writing!