WWPR: MS7 Revision Notes & Pass 1 (Week 1)

It's been a whirlwind of a week! But I'm so excited to sit down and get into this WWPR, because it feels like a celebration. For one, I am fully functional now, and the cold I had is becoming more like a distant memory as each day passes. With the increase in energy levels, I gathered all my notes, scene cards, and my running list of problems in my MS, and focused this week on finding solutions!

Here's my week in writing:

THURSDAY: Reviewing the macro problems first (plot, character, setting), I placed all of my scene cards on the floor to rearrange them and placed my solutions onto the notecard with stickies. I'll save you the long spiel on how I did this by referring you to Marissa Meyer and Susan Dennard's websites. My method is basically a combination of their revision process, and they provide a lot of info on how to go about revisions if you want to read up on it.

I worked from 4-8 p.m. (make sure to follow my instagram @michelletranwrites to see my insta stories), but it was so worth it because by the end of the night I knew where I wanted to take this MS, and most importantly, how.

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FRIDAY: I began my first pass of revisions by making the changes I wanted directly on the printed manuscript. My goal is to finish this relatively quickly (2-2.5 weeks) and then type in the changes on my computer while concurrently doing a second pass of the manuscript afterward.

Pass one will focus on getting the plot nailed down with all the scenes in the correct order and roughly putting the character arcs in place to compliment the plot.

Pass two will be to get the character arcs fully fleshed out while also fixing the flow/transitions of the story since I had to move a lot of scenes around.

Depending on where I'm at with pass 2, I anticipate a pass 3 and 4 to focus on setting, dialogue, and prose. Maybe then I'll feel confident enough to ship out my MS to some CP's.

SATURDAY: I flew back to Sac to celebrate my nieces birthday! It was a quick trip, but I still brought my manuscript, just in case. I was able to get one chapter done on the flight there.

SUNDAY: Since my niece was just too cute and wanted to play, I didn't get any revising done. I ended up having quality time with her and the family. I built her new birthday gift I had chipped in to buy. It took me about 4-5 hours, but her excitement for her play kitchen was worth it.

MONDAY: Since I didn't get much done during my weekend in Sac, I had to turn it up a notch and make up time for it. I ended up getting through 5 chapters!

TUESDAY: Pass one continues. I've made it to one third through of the write-in portion of the revision. To make things even better, I got some surprise holiday mail from 2 of my great CP's Mic & Krystal!!! THANK YOU!!!

WEDNESDAY: ALMOST HALFWAY DONE. Cue celebration with this WWPR post!

All of this planning and organizing during the revision process has really inspired me to keep myself on track--not just now, but for 2018. To do so, I'm using a planner instead of my typical spreadsheet or notebook so I can jot down my progress. Hopefully by the end of 2018, I'll have a full planner focusing on making 2018 my best writing year. Here's what the planner looks like reflecting this week! For the month portion, I quickly jot down my progress and what week I'm on. For the week portion, I also jot down how I'm currently feeling about the process to help me reflect.

Hopefully by next week, I'll be done with the write in part. Wish me luck, and happy writing!

What are your ways to stay on track? Comment below!

WWPR: Detailed notes are your best friend.

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Last week I mentioned being sick which completely threw off my productivity. In hindsight, I guess I kind of deserved it. I stopped working out during Thanksgiving week and wasn't eating as healthy as I normally do. Combine that with the fact that I've been pretty stressed at work (Q4 is the busiest time ever), and how I've been pushing myself to revise as much as I can,  my body was susceptible to catching something--especially while traveling.

Fighting a nasty cold, my body was telling me to stop and rest. That everything would have to wait. That I needed to check out for awhile and relax. So I did. I slept and binged on Alias Grace on Netflix (so good btw!). By the weekend, I felt well enough to go to wine country for a preplanned trip with some friends. Then by Tuesday afternoon I started feeling more human so I slowly transitioned back to my normal schedule.

But when I sat down to do my revisions, I had a huge problem: my revision notes weren't very detailed. They were general notes I'd written about what needed to be changed in the MS, but not how to do it.

I cursed my past self for reading my MS on the plane ride without taking detailed notes (note to self: don't ever do that again). SIGH.

So this week I focused on doing another reading--take 2! This time writing detailed notes about every little thing wrong with it so that I could come up with solutions (aka a micro-game plan to complement the macro notes I had from the first read-through).

No one likes doing anything twice, so this time I made it my intent to be thorough. I printed out the MS, gathered my pens, highlighters, index cards, and planner so that I could catch every little problem.

I read the MS again in two days and ended up with 5 pages of handwritten notes and all of my chapters outlined in notecards. It felt so good to finally have detailed notes on what wasn't working. Now, I can focus on finding the solutions and making a clear cut revision plan.

Tune in next week to see how I do just that!

 

 

Thanksgiving 2018

I was really hoping to make some headway in my writing, but alas, I got sick with the cold post travel. So no WWPR this week, but here's a quick slideshow of my Thanksgiving trip where I was healthy, happy, and eating delicious food all week long! It's the one time out of the year that my family and I get together, so it's always a blast and goes by much too quickly.

WWPR: Read-Through & Revision Planning

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Before I spend the rest of the day in gratitude and spending time with my family, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog, follows my journey, or believes in me. Writing always feels like a solo endeavor, but I don't think I could ever push on and continue the good fight without everyone's support and encouragement. So thank you.

Now, onto this week in writing:

M8-Outline

Last week I took a break from M7 to outline M8, and I'm happy to say that I've completed the outline and am 100% happy with it. I'm so excited to draft this story up in January. It'll be a great way to start off writing in 2018, and I get to fall back into a world I've desperately missed. I finished it up last Thursday before heading out to a wine event, which was awesome because it gave me more cause to celebrate.

M7-Read-Through & Revision Planning

Like I mentioned, I set aside Saturday and Sunday to flash read ATLWTO even though I was traveling. Because I was traveling, I couldn't have a pen and notebook with me at all times to jot down my thoughts, but I didn't want to waste time either. Travel days encompass so much time wasted anyway, so I really wanted to make the most of it. I made it my goal to read quickly and throughly so I could see how all my elements were working as a whole. To accomplish this, I ended up downloading my MS onto my kindle app so I could read on the go. For notes, I kept it brief and big picture, and typed it quickly in my notes app.

Some of my thoughts while reading:

  • OMG, this beginning is terrible, should I change it again? 
  • Okay, this part isn't too bad. I can expand on this part. There's something there.
  • With this character, there's a lot of pain here. Gonna exploit that, but hopefully she doesn't over power my MC.
  • Ow. Okay. Getting a little teary-eyed. Next time I read this through, I want to be balling snot-tears. I could have done more.
  • There's some hope at the end, I need a better resolution. I need to draw these things out a bit more.

These of course differ from my actual writing notes in my app, but the thing for me to see here is there are some good parts and bad, and a whole lot that I can to to improve it. This is a GOOD thing. I've had some read-throughs where I know it's so terrible or it lacks something for me, so I end up tossing the whole manuscript.

I finished the read-through in about 3-4 hours which is fantastic. I read a third before bed, woke up at 4 a.m. to hit the airport, read as I shuffled through TSA, and then finished on the flight.  So if you're ever traveling and wondering if you have time to work on your MS, it's totally doable.

By Monday, I had many, many thoughts percolating before sitting down and writing up a revision plan.

I'm a list person, so I basically jotted things from macro to micro that needed to be fixed as a whole, and then organized them into a list. Tuesday, I went to my favorite coffee shop back home and typed out my revision notes and went through my outline scene by scene to see what needed to be fixed until I had a plan that focused on plot and character arc for my first pass. Though the list seems overwhelming, I'm excited to shape this story more and more, and see where six more weeks of revision can bring this.

 

 

WWPR: Manuscript baking & outlining.

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Any followers from 2015 remember my WWPR posts? Yeah, me neither, until a bout of nostalgia propelled me to dig into my archives. WWPR stands for 'Weekly Writing Progress Report'. I started it when I drafted M4, the manuscript that got me into PitchWars and also landed me my first agent. It was, and still continues to be the book of my heart.

One thing I loved about M4 was how easy it was to write (well easy in comparison to all my projects after it and before it) that I got to wondering if blogging about it was the secret ingredient to making it so enjoyable. So, out of curiosity, I dug back into the archives to read about my process, and it brought all these fond memories containing such great nuggets of illuminating advice current-me can still learn from and appreciate. With all of my discussions about my process and how beneficial it was to my craft, I wondered why I ever stopped? Sure I had some posts about my other projects, but this weekly snapshot of seeing it grow and how it became an integral part of my life was truly something.

(If you're curious about those posts, click here and it will lead you down the rabbit hole)

Thus, I'm bringing WWPR back for my pleasure and enjoyment, and also hopefully yours!

So here we go!

This week in writing:

MS7: ATLWTO, YA own voices inspired Contemporary
Status: Draft Two, finished
  • This week I'm letting my YA Contemporary 'bake' so that I can get fresh eyes on it before I do my read-through this weekend. What's cool about letting it bake are the ideas coming from having more brain space to think about it instead of focusing on writing/revising it. I've been jotting down notes on my phone in hopes that they will come in handy when I start making a revision plan for draft three.
  • I did share a small excerpt with my husband on Monday to see what he thought of it. He's only read a beginning clipping from draft one, but I changed the tone and voice in draft two so I was curious to see what he thought. He liked it, and there are parts I do too, but I know it has a long way to go before matching the vision in my head.
  • READ-THROUGH PLAN: Currently I have Saturday and Sunday blocked out on my calendar to do a read-through. I'm also traveling though for the holiday, but I'm hopeful I can still knock it out since it's only 59K.
MS8: ADOSAE, YA Fantasy
Status: Outlining
  • Some background on this project: I've had this idea since forever. Remember the book of my heart I mentioned earlier M4? I guess I should have said one book from a series of my heart. Totally dangerous territory, but I can't help it. This project is my prequel to M4. It's dangerous because you should never put all your eggs in one basket, but there's something about the world and the wide nest of characters that I'm desperate to explore. I guess the one perk of not being agented right now is the fact that I get to write whatever I want for the sake of pure enjoyment. To be frank, this world is my escape so I'm gonna roll with it because I love it so much. And that's kind of awesome because I'm going to follow my heart. It's also a great break from the serious contemporary WIP above.
  • Outlining - My process changes with every book, but on this one, I couldn't help but recreate my environment from M4, so I went through my drive and notebooks to see how I outlined it and it was so simple. So simple I feel like I'm cheating. M4 only used a skimpy outline and a list of possible scenes that I kept adding to as I wrote the story. So for M8 I'm doing the same, but I'm going to be a tad bit more detailed since I won't be drafting this baby until January.
    • How I Outline (in 3 Layers):
      1. I first start with a skeleton plot (a la Sarah Dessen). Find your beginning, your midpoint, and then the end. Once you have that, make a list of scenes and try to put them in natural order that gets you from Point A to Point B. Or in this case from the beginning, middle, to end. For this part, try not to think too much, just let your creative side loose and capture all those images floating in your mind. By this point you have a very skeletal outline that might look like a scene list, and you might get stuck. Totally okay, because that brings us to layer two.
      2. Now that I have an idea of what my plot looks like, I start to think about my major characters. Who are they? What do they want? Need? Afraid of? This method is something Marissa Meyer delves into on her blog and it's always stuck with me. Plot is really your characters doing stuff. i.e. making decisions, that lead them to another, and so on until it gets progressively worst for the character (but great for the reader). I'll drop the link here for you to check out.
      3. Once I get my characters semi-developed, I start to see how they interact with the plot, and this usually ends up generating more scenes and clarity to my outline. Then to make sure I hit all the plot points, I compare my outline to a beat sheet to make sure I have all the elements of plot, and then I trace through each major character arc to see if I got that too. Review and repeat until you're satisfied. By this point, you should have a triple layered outline loose enough you know where you're headed, but not so strict that you can't deviate ;)
  • I should mention this method seems to work with my YA Fantasy pretty well, but not Contemporary. For Contemporary I switch the first and second layer in this method by planning my characters first and using the plot to serve their arc.
  • Another tip, outlining by pen and paper usually stirs more creativity than going straight to a word processor to brainstorm. I usually free write the ideas and then arrange them all typed up so I can move it around, but that's your call ;) We all have our personal preferences.

Lastly, to the dreamers:

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I'm talking about those of us who aren't quite there in publishing land, but are keeping up the good fight. Those of us who've made some milestones, but have also had to dust ourselves off and pick ourselves back up. It's easy to be down on yourself as you see everyone around you (or so it seems) getting published and making their dreams come true. It's easy to be jealous or envious thinking they have it made. But appearances can be deceiving. Everyone has their own challenges, everyone still has to write, and so do you. In the end, we're all just writers trying to share the stories that matter to us. I think we sometimes forget that when all we see is a dividing line separating the ones that have 'made' it from the ones who haven't. This is an imaginary line. We're all people trying to find a home for our stories in our readers.

So keep up the good fight. Take a break if you need to. Your stories will be waiting for you when you're ready.

Finding the frame for your vision.

Over the weekend I finished the second draft of my WIP (for nomenclature purposes I'll refer to it as ATLWTO--which is shorthand for my working title). Though it only took me three weeks to crank out, I felt like it was emotionally draining so I didn't really celebrate.

Draft one, which I will deem my exploratory draft, was just all over the place. I couldn't decide on the tense, I fiddled constantly with timelines--it was basically a mess of me trying to figure out what was the best way to tell the story. My outline did not help whatsoever. Sometimes unfortunately, you don't know what works until you're knee deep in 30K words, and then you reread some bits and think, this would be better if I wrote it this way instead. Then there were the scenes that I thought was important to show but it did not serve the plot. Oh and then one character who I didn't really like, kept convincing me that he did not fit in the character box I was trying to fit him in, so that threw a wrench in things.

So you can imagine when I started my second draft how daunting all of this was when draft one became a mish mash of broken pieces. For draft two I simplified things by focusing on one thing, and one thing only: plot. I needed to nail the frame down for my vision, which meant I had to decide on the tense and stick to it. I had to decide if I wanted to do multiple timelines and why. In the end I decided I needed one thing solid to build off, because I was not going to go through a revision nightmare. Thus in three weeks, I revised the chapters I would keep, and then rewrote half of the MS fitting in the stepping stones to connect the plot for me to flesh out in draft three.

Case in point: Figure out the frame for your vision before you begin. It's like when you have a very dear photograph you want to frame. Do you just put it in any one you find? Or do you actually spend time looking for the perfect one that will compliment your photo? Note to self: take frame shopping seriously.

This week I'm going to take a much needed break from the MS by outlining the next idea. Then during Thanksgiving break I'll do my read through and make a heavy lifting revision plan for draft three--which I will give myself 6 weeks instead of three to complete. If all goes according to plan I'll have a working draft going into the new year!

On the other hand, since I've been obsessed with getting this MS done, done, done, I've been more introverted as usual and off of social media. The introverted thing can't be helped sometimes. It's SO DAMN DARK in the PNW so all I want to do is hibernate, but I will say being off social media has been a great 'breather' which increased my productivity.

 I'll end this post by dropping some reading recs that were my favorites this month and jotting down a few life updates:

An Enchantment of Ravens - I adored the love story, the adventure, the world building (so lush), and the pretty but to the point writing :D This will probably be a book I revisit. I read the whole thing through during a weekend.

Body Love - I always love reading up on diet and nutrition in the hopes of optimizing my lifestyle and I really loved the science-y explanations on blood sugar and hormones. Not to mention the simple approach to balanced eating.

I traded in my natural hair color for a balayage. Still getting used to this lighter version of me. Hopefully I'll have a better picture of it up on the blog later.

A dusting of snow came early to my neck of the woods. It made for pretty writing weather but terrible conditions for my already dry skin.

Lastly, I tried out Bounty Kitchen in Seattle with some TIU girls. Definitely a cool spot to catch some healthy eats in Queen Anne.

Changing of the Seasons

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It's been awhile hasn't it? Fall is in full bloom, pumpkins are everywhere, the week long rain has begun over the greater Seattle area. My day's uniform now consists of waterproof ankle boots and my trusty raincoat. I will most likely wear this outfit for the next two months and then switch the raincoat for my down jacket. Fall I absolutely love, but winter is where I struggle. Nonetheless, I'm trying to embrace the seasons while also wishing for a shorter winter (last year was the worst since I'd moved to Washington--let's not have a repeat of that). Though the days get darker sooner, I have a lot to be thankful for.

This month I've been filling up my time with friends and family. Each weekend has been celebrated with loved ones and holiday festivities. There's always something on the calendar for the weekend which has kept me happy. I'm also reading pretty voraciously which I haven't done in a while, but it keeps my creative well full (so note to self, never stop reading).

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I've also brought myself to write again. If you've read my blog this past year, you know I've been up and down with my craft--like a full blown hate-love affair. It's been a painful road with my work. I've felt so low that I had avoided writing anything at all. Plus, every time I tried, I felt paralyzed. I felt foolish. Like I wasn't even worthy of my dreams. My heart begged this question to be answered: why I was doing this? Why do I want to do this?

I had to dig down deep. I thought it over for months and months wavering over possibilities, feeling stagnant, and also a bystander of a world I felt no longer part of. I felt alone. So per usual, I turned to books.

In one of the books I'd been reading, there was a section discussing how your childhood can clue you in to what you really want to do. If you think of the moments of happiness, the turning points that changed you, it can clue you in to how you'd like to spend your life. A child's heart is more in tune to their subconscious because it hasn't had the world and outside voices interfering and telling them who they should be. As a child, you are just you being you.

I recall my turning point in middle school. I was reading Wendalin Van Draanen's Flipped for a Battle of the Books competition. The scene where Julianna has to give up the Sycamore tree and her father comes into her bedroom and gives her a painting of the tree with her in it made me cry. You have to read it to fully get the impact of this painting. It was the first book to get such a strong emotion out of me. And when I'd finished the book, I felt changed though the world around me wasn't.

I'd like to think after that when growing up got really tough, books were the thing that saved me. It became my escape. I went down the rabbit hole and never looked back.

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I think about now and why I write. Of course I'd like to make a career out of it. Who wouldn't want their dream job? That really isn't a good enough reason though, is it? Everyone has a dream job. What marks the difference between having a dream and making it a reality? Is it more than just passion? More than love and a sacrifice? Is it a service? Do you do something you're passionate about because you believe it can make some impact or do some good in the world? Or is it only a pursuit of a selfish gain or validation?

I'm going into a too long of a tangent, but I guess when it comes down to it, I see my young adult self struggling, and I wish to put a story in her hands and change her world for the better. Maybe I'll change her views, maybe I'll give her an escape. I just want my stories to be out there in case she needs them. It's a big selfish, but also a service. An in between or a compromise to my above dilemma, I suppose. This is my 'why' though and it's brought me back to writing.

My current WIP is a pretty difficult story to write. I have no idea if it'll pan out. But I'm hopeful, and that's something I haven't felt in a while--so it's time for me to run with it and see where it takes me.

And so with the changing of seasons, I also feel a change in me. So yeah, that's where I've been.

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