Progress Update: TEN

mood: determined
pandora/ipod: "9 to 5" by dolly parton

So I spent most... well, almost all of my holiday weekend working. I didn't have to go into the office, in fact I spent most of that time sitting in bed, but I was working nonetheless. I had a date with my manuscript for TEN, a date that involved a red pen and a whole lot of notes.



So here's my update. I'm currently at about 50K words. I have technically written "THE END" but I have a lot to fix, change, add, etc. Still, as of Saturday morning I had a barely there though mostly complete manuscript.

Then I cut that bitch up.



For me, a book really comes together once I print it out and subject it to my red pen. I try to read the whole thing through in about a day/day and a half. That way, everything is really fresh in my mind and I can catch the majority of continuity errors (of which there were many) and focus on evening out the tone and voice. It's the point in the process where I usually get excited about a manuscript, energized to finish it. And this weekend was no exception.



The dog? Not so much. Though he does make an excellent document holder.

So as of today I have a little over three weeks to get this thing together and turned in. I'm looking to add about 15K-20K words to the story between now and then, and with a little luck I'll even have time to get some feedback on it before it goes in.

I'm FINALLY feeling good about this manuscript. I'm liking the characters, I'm finally understanding them all, and motivations are starting to come together. *phew* There's always a point early on when I'm convinced I'll never make a story work and when I get to this point I'm always amazed.

Three more weeks...