I have to apologize for being gone so long. It's not that I haven't been writing. It's more that I haven't been blogging. (Well, also not writing as much as I should have been...)
A year ago, we moved from CA to OK, and I'm finally finding time to update my website (soon to be complete) and also to blog about the progress on my latest manuscript, a contemporary romance.
I'm using the abbreviation, CCK, for the title since I'm not totally sure what the actual title will be. But I've finally had some free weeks to totally devote to writing, and I'm thrilled to say (after way too many mornings staring at the computer screen) that I'm up to 42,000 words. My first goal is to have 65,000 by the end of July. My second goal is to have a first draft by the end of the summer.
This manuscript has been especially hard because I started it in the fall of 2012, right after my son went off to college. I made good progress through the fall and even through the holidays. But I quickly got sidetracked that spring with packing to move. Then unpacking in the summer, a very busy fall, the holidays again with little or no work done, some writing in the spring but mostly trying to decide if I should downsize from three main female characters to just one. Then to a writers' conference in AZ during which I figured out lots of things. One was: I needed to have just one main female character.
Oh, and I also spent some time wondering how things were going in Africa where my son was studying for the spring semester... Then May comes and he comes home! And I finally get back to business, so to speak.
While I was working today, an email came in from a Yahoo writing group I'm part of through RWA (Romance Writers of America). The question posted was about motivation. I read a lot and one thing that bugs me is when the author does not set up the motivation. The characters have to want something and want it bad. That's one of the qualities of good writing. The other is the set-up. I like to say that you can make just about anything believable if you set it up. For example, Jane Doe, your main female character really would chew on bark - believably - if you set it up that maybe that's what she used to do as a kid while out in the woods with her dear ol' grandpa.
My other gripe? No story. I mean, NO STORY. I can't tell you how many books I've started this summer that did not have a story. So, we need to add story-telling to the list of talents a writer should have. I hope it's one I have.
Total words today: 1343
Total manuscript words: 42,031
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