Manuscript Monday #10

Manuscript Monday is a series of blog posts which chronicle the life of my manuscript. It follows the journey I take to turn my week old baby story idea into a fully grown, polished novel. Take the journey with me. 🙂

My 10 week- old manuscript:

There’s nothing like a break from everyday life to rejuvenate your writing.

As I write this post, I’m riding the train from NYC back to my home in Upstate, NY. It was a crazy fun, action packed weekend… We started in the wee morning hours each day and didn’t stop until late at night. It’s amazing just how much there is to do in the City!

We shopped on Fifth Avenue. We ate mouth- watering meals at both restaurants and corner delis. We caught Aladdin on Broadway, (the boys caught a Rangers game). We checked out the Wax Museum and the MET, the Empire State Building and the Reflecting Pools at Ground Zero. We found a hidden French dessert café overlooking the city. We cheered for the NYC Marathon runners (including my husband)! And we took pictures. Lots of pictures!

I loved spending the whole weekend like this with my family. NYC is amazing, but I realized I am so not a city girl. My daughter actually navigated most everyplace her and I went alone. I am directionally challenged to say the least. But I do love to visit from time to time. For me it’s such an adventure. I have to say though, that after non-stop walking, subway riding, and racing from place to place, I am exhausted and thrilled to be headed home. Thrilled to get back to writing…

Because Week 10 of my baby manuscript went so well! Before we left for the weekend. I made a lot of progress on my draft. I told you about the electric idea I had. Well this week I was able to turn the ideas I had drafted and expand on them. I’m thinking the stuff I wrote last week was pretty solid because I was able to continue with what I started. I kept writing and writing and it felt great.

I’m falling in love with this story. Yay! How great is that? I know you know the feeling. It happens to all of us from time to time. And the best part is that I can’t wait to draft again tomorrow. Being away from this story for even the weekend has made me miss it all the more. It helps too that a change of scenery has given me a brain-full of story ideas. People watching and listening in a new place will do that for you. And let me tell you, if you’ve never been to NYC, you should! The people are friendly, but incredibly varied. People watching at it’s very best!

So at week 10, I guess this story is moving forward. Like I said, my goal is to write 500 words a day. I stuck to that this week. I did not stick to that this weekend, but I’m okay with that. The break has made me anxious to get back to it and who knows…maybe I’ll write double that tomorrow. 🙂

For those of you wondering how my Marathon Man did at the race…He did well! Marathon #11 is in the books. 🙂 But the run was not without struggles. He ran with a relentless cough and head cold. The day was 40 degrees with wind gusts of 40 miles per hour. (Yikes!) There were 51,000 finishers so it was tough for anyone running to navigate the crowds and keep their pace. So he did not get a PR (personal record) but he was very pleased anyway. He ran with amazing people through 26.2 miles of an amazing city. The experience of that alone made it special for him—and for us too!

So like I said last week, I’ll keep striving to reach my writing goal as he has strived to reach his running ones. It’s always fun to cheer each other on! I hope all of you will do the same. I hope this week will be a good one for you. And remember, if you think you can’t write one more word, I’m here to tell you that you can. You’re the only one who can write your story. So go on. Write it! Your characters are waiting for you to give them something great to do. 🙂