Manuscript Monday is a series of blog posts which chronicle the life of my latest 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. 🙂
Setbacks. We all have them. It may involve a story Idea that at one time seemed brilliant but now seems downright awful. It could involve a subplot that worked at one time but now confuses your main plot, or doesn’t mesh with your character’s growth. It could involve a plot twist that was so perfect, but now seems, well ordinary.
What to do? What to do?
I had a setback of my own this week. I finally submitted my chapter outline for the day-job project. I was so pleased with it and was sure my client would be too. Well…he was, but he wants me to save it for another book. The good news is I’ll get another project out of it. The bad news is he changed his mind about the direction for THIS book. He wants different characters and a different plot too. Yeah kind of a big deal. So I need to completely redo the chapter outline.
So you may wonder what the big deal is. I am getting paid to do this so just redo it, right? The trouble is, I’ve spent the past several weeks with this story brewing in my head. The characters, the obstacles, the setting…all of it. I finally came up with a story that I was happy with and hit all the points the client was looking for. I was so ready to write it—to bring the characters to life. I was so ready to draft. And now I can’t. Now I have to clear all of it out of my head, and start fresh. Oh my!
So while it may not be a typical setback, for me it’s still a setback. So what will I do? The same thing all of us do when we have one with our story. I’ll push on. I’ll regroup and put on my thinking cap. I’ll come up with a new story. I’ll make it great. Now sure exactly how, but I will.
And if you’re dealing with a setback with your own story, I hope you’ll push through too. 🙂
So that brings me to my fiction WIP for this week. Unfortunately since I’m going to be working on the day-job project longer than I thought, it will be awhile longer before I can work on it. Bummer. But we all know this happens sometimes.
I wish I had more to report at this time. Maybe next week! Until Wednesday, have a stellar week. And in case you missed it, take a look at my last post on character quirks. I love using them! In fact, I may have to include some unusual ones in my next book. Maybe you should too. 🙂
Good luck to you all this week. I’ll be thinking of you as you write wonderful words!
swirl and spark 