My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 55 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 17, 57 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Sorry for the radio silence, y’all. I’m exhausted. Between having a bunch of new scenes to write and everything else that’s going on, things have just been a lot. I’ve still been working, just not as much. However, I’m still waaaaay ahead of my August deadline, and it’s my party, so…
Should be able to knock out the rest of the cut next week. Woo!
My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 44 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 17, 44 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Chugging away. Feels like the middle of the book is where all my problem scenes and new scenes are. And because this is the first time I’m reading everything through in this order, I keep finding parts where I’ll have to fix things earlier in the book. But that will have to wait for the next pass in the next lesson.
My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 33 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 17, 33 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Halfway there! I had two scenes that had to be written completely from scratch, and a few that needed some significant rewriting, so I wasn’t able to get through as many as quickly as previous weeks. But I’m still really happy about the order of the scenes, there are so many points where I’ve moved to the next scene and thought, “Holy shit, this is perfect timing.”
My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 22 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 17, 25 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: One of my cats, Ruby, has been really getting on my nerves while I’m trying to work. She hangs out in the kitchen and just screams at the door the whole time. I don’t know why, because she’s in the same room as me. Maybe it’s because she can’t sit in my lap when I’m at the table. Who knows.
Also, it occurs to me that only my dad actually sees what I’m doing, so here’s a pic of my setup on the kitchen table for the cut.
No spoilers for you!
The 3 ring binder has my previous lesson worksheets so when I come across reference tags in the manuscript I can go back and look at my notes. Front and center is the stack of pages I’m currently working on for that scene. Just above that are my scene cards so I can stay on track; they have the scene sentence (which is just a single sentence describing what happens in the scene), page numbers, time, purpose, and list of relevant characters on them. Then on the right is the rest of the manuscript, separated into “unedited” and “cut” folders. There is a third “perfect” folder that I have yet to use in any of my revisions, but this one isn’t done yet, so there’s still a chance. The blank notebook paper is hopefully self-explanatory, but the cutting mat hanging over the stray box of tissues (don’t ask) may not be.
So when I call this the “cut”, I mean there are places where I will use an Exacto knife to literally cut parts out and glue them (glue stick is hidden in the shadow of the mat there next to my pens, sticky notes, and the box for my knives) onto another page. There are of course the way more common giant red “x”s and hand-written additions that will go on these pages.
Yes, I know we are living in 2025, and no, I will never do this process any other way.
My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 11 scenes in
Where I am: Lesson 17, 16 scenes in
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: The first few scenes here were pretty light work, so I tried to get through more than I really needed to so I don’t struggle as much later when I have to write completely new scenes. Sometimes those can take me a couple of hours to do, and on the days I work, I don’t have that much time after.
I will say, it felt amazing to read through some of these scenes and have them fall in line, like they were always meant to be in this order…I mean, I knew what I was doing all along!
Meilo Zaborowski: Author 