I’m happy to report that the first ever Rock Lake Writers retreat was a success. Despite having to relocate it at the last minute, the place we found was totally adequate (nothing fancy, but the beds were comfortable and there were plenty of spots to sit and work – there’s a photo of it on the right there). I didn’t get a whole lot writing done on Friday afternoon, but Saturday and Sunday were both solid, nine-hour days. That’s more writing than I usually do in a month.
’m happy to report that the first ever Rock Lake Writers retreat was a success. Despite having to relocate it at the last minute, the place we found was totally adequate (nothing fancy, but the beds were comfortable and there was plenty of spots to sit and work – there’s a photo of it on the right there). I didn’t get a whole lot writing done on Friday afternoon, but Saturday and Sunday were both solid, nine-hour days. That’s more writing than I usually do in a month.
I really needed a chunk of time to sit with my story. I had some big decisions to make. In fact, I spent most of Saturday moving flashcards around on the carpet, writing in my journal to see how certain story lines would play out if I moved them, and trying to decide what I’m doing.
I will say that it’s a little frustrating to feel like I’m still figuring out my story after all this time. But here’s the most telling result for me; late Sunday afternoon I took another stab at my synopsis and it actually went well. I’ve never been able to write a synopsis for my novel, because it always sounded kind of episodic, and certain plot points sounded like weird jumps when put into summary format.
Well this time, when I sat down to draft the synopsis, it actually started to sound like one cohesive story, with interesting (but not totally random) plot turns, and logically motivate characters. I take this as a very good sign.
Not quite good enough though, to keep from feeling discouraged. Because I basically trashed fifty pages of my story, and if you follow my blog, you know my story was already so short that it barely qualified as a novel.
So damn it, I’m on the right path, but to get there I had to take a serious step backward.
Many times this weekend I thought maybe I’ll just put this one in a drawer, write the next novel and then circle back – make this my second novel. The next novel will be outlined and plotted and planned to hell and back before I start, I’ll tell you what. This has been (and continues to be) a seriously painful process.
And now it’s back to work. I mean day-job work.
But if I can write 1,000 words a week I could be done with the draft by the end of the year. That seems like a reasonable goal.
You gotta have goals, I say.
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