So I hit not only my minimum word goal (45k) for April this week, I hit my stretch goal of 50k which was great, right? Yea, except the last two scenes I wrote were atrocious, I was stumbling in all aspects - plot, characterization, voice, pacing, you name it. So frustrating! I've been pushing to keep writing, recognizing the problems in the scenes, but vowing to keep "failing forward" and fix them all in post (aka edits) which has always been the plan. But when the scenes are such a mess, you don't even know where you are going or how to get there, when the plot holes are like black holes and everything is painful, what's a girl to do? It's hard to commit to keep writing to the end when you know that you are running on four flat tires and an engine blowing smoke. CUT SCENE I'm on a number of FB groups for writing and writers and recently had a number of requests/opportunities to serve as accountability/writing buddy all pop up at once. I reached out to a few of these, not because I was looking for help, but it's nice to get out of my own head and read over someone else's work for a while, with the hopes of them returning the favor in the future. So I initiated the standard getting-to-know-you sorts of conversations on messenger; one was a "Hey, nice to meet you" and done so we will see where that goes. Two others were more, "hey, i've got an issue, you mind talking me through it." But I didn't expect was, after talking through some things with Michelle (last name omitted until she says otherwise), she asked me how I was doing and admitted I had some struggles and a plot hole or two. She foolishly offered to help and so I spewed basically the whole of the plot down in FB Messenger, because the problem was with the ending feeling to contrived (very deus ex machina). First, let me say how clarifying it was to summarize, in writing, my own work to this point. It's one thing when it's all messy up in your head, or full of so much detail on the pages; but to try and distill it down to maybe not a synopsis but at least a handful of paragraphs, it makes you really look at the whole thing in a new way. We then chatted through the issues I was having and she asked a few good questions which I answered and made a few suggestions that I'd previously had in the original idea but had then strayed from during drafting. Now I'm looking at returning to a lot of these ideas, but with a slightly altered perspective from the original and have gone from frustrated to excited again. Thank you Michelle!! Of course, now the problem is to find ways to integrate these ideas, some of which go all the way back to the first few scenes without breaking down and editing - I know me, and that's a rabbit hole for sure. I'd start editing and never finish the damn book! I'm actually considering doing a second version of one of the earliest scenes, using just these new ideas and the original outline (I'm thinking like a Director's cut/alternate ending) and keeping it side-by-side with the original scene until I get to the editing stage later in the year, then see what works and what doesn't, keep what I like and toss the rest. Yes, I realize this is a ton of words that won't get used, but I like the idea of starting the scene fresh from this new perspective (without deleting anything from the original! NEVER delete anything!!) I think it will get me what I need for going forward and still won't be editing. Only downside is that those words won't count towards my total novel word count but I still think it's worth it. For now, I've printed out my scene outline and am going back through to figure out where I can add some of the elements Michelle and I discussed and maybe even add a scene or two! Fingers crossed this helps.
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