14-DAY CHALLENGE: PART 1

J says: I’d rather be 100% done with 10% of the work than 10% done with 100% of the work

JUNE 16TH:

LUKE for 15MIN. What am I going to do? I hate all of it. It’s garbage.
Next month is CAMP, and I know I should work on LUKE, but I don’t know where to start.
FREAK OUT.
Go back to the list:

when in doubt, we can always…

• begin at the beginning
• muddle through the middle
• end with the ending

It just so happens this novel has three parts, so that’s particularly helpful.
I think I will go over the notes and decide what to do.

MUDDY MIDDLE IT IS! I decided to tackle this character head on and try to get inside. We shall see how it works, but for today that is enough.

JUNE 17TH:

Today I did the work of going back over my notes, or at least starting to. I began to get the character a little more. I re-met the person I have been writing about for months.

It was like running into an old acquaintance and remembering some fond and distant memory the two of you share.

I was inspired by my writing group, BYONAP (more on them later), whose assignment it is this week to uncover some character quirks. We wanted to have a laugh and that’s what we’ve come up with.  This is not the project I’m working on for them, but I decided it was a good dry run for that work.

So, I began to unearth my character’s quirks as well as his/her past and the reasons he/she ticks. My characters have a heartbeat and I treat them like real people who whisper their stories in my ear.

I am not afraid to share them with you.

However, I don’t want to give the story or parts of the novel away by referring to specific characters and their development. That’s why the he/she.

I don’t even want to know which character I’m talking about unless I just happen to remember. It’s important y’all not feel like you’ve read the novel before it’s published, because that would suck, and you wouldn’t want to buy it.

I want you to want to buy it very much.

JUNE 18TH

Mostly rambled. J asked how an event happened. I’d thought about the event, but not the episodes leading up to it.

I realized I need some more research (or at least quick google searches to make sure I’m not making stupid mistakes)

JUNE 19TH

More ramblings on another character. How he/she is dressed and what’s the particular problem. Insecurities and character quirks. Details about this person’s job.

JUNE 20

ALL IS DOOMED. I may have to start over. I’ve been asked and asked myself some hard questions about these characters. Deep questions about their motivations and backgrounds that formed the people they are. I don’t know if I’ve said it here, but I feel and respect my characters as real people telling me their stories, so to think I may have misjudged them or they may not end up where I thought is disconcerting. This is probably nothing new, but I’m panicking.

DIRTY REALISM is the official genre, says R. I’m pretty sure that still makes it LIT FIC, but who knows.

Another character has entered my head and I’m wondering about the necessity of creating yet another. Madness I tell you. These characters are doing things that don’t make sense to me and I’m afraid I’m going to end up with yet another story I didn’t intend to write.

JUNE 21

Starting back over with a character. R asked me to describe this character and it got me thinking about his/her motivations and origins. It was nice to go back to the drawing board, though I still haven’t looked at my notes or anything. All of this is coming out of my head, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. It’s helpful to re-think the whens whys and hows of where characters came from and how they got to where they are.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading and stay tuned to me *hopefully* getting my act together next week. Until.

xxxlinsey