novels – Page 5 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

Teardrop on the fire

Goal 1) Revise BM&A3

My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 11, complete
Where I am: Lesson 11, 13 scenes added, complete
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I didn’t add as many scenes as I wanted, but I managed to come up with some brilliant ideas (that I’m honestly surprised I didn’t think of until now) and I’m really excited to write them. But I’ve got a few more lessons to go before I can do that in Lesson 17. Thankfully, most of them are pretty short and I should be able to knock most of them out in just one week apiece.

Just like suffocating

Goal 1) Revise BM&A3

My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 11, ???
Where I am: Lesson 11, 10 scenes added
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
This lesson is for either lengthening or shortening the story, so since I came in about 11k words short of what I really wanted and I’m already set to cut several scenes, adding is definitely the way to go. I think ideally I’d like to add 8 more, but we’ll see how it goes.

Is this what you wanted? Is this what you had in mind?

Goal 1) Revise BM&A3

My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 10, 30-60 LFS
Where I am: Lesson 10, complete
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
52 lines for scene complete.

This is another one of my favorite lessons, by the way. It’s not easy, but it forces my brain to organize the story, or at least attempt to, and I come to some interesting realizations about scene order and juxtaposition. I’m not gonna lie, beyond some vague ideas of the general area where some scenes should be (this one should be closer to the beginning, this one has to go after that one, and the finale obviously goes at the end), I had no idea what order they were supposed to go in. Reading the rough draft the first time felt like I’d just dumped a handful of vignettes in a blender and gave it a few pulses. Even though after this lesson is done, the order I have isn’t perfect, it gives me a much clearer idea of what it should be to make the most sense and flow naturally from one scene to the next.

It also pretty neatly cooks most of the fat off and leaves the meat of the book, so to speak.

Feelin’ like a hand in rusted shame

Goal 1) Revise BM&A3

My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 10, 15-30 LFR complete
Where I am: Lesson 10, 20 LFR complete
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
20 lines for revision complete.

Onward.

Don’t wanna be an American idiot

Goal 1) Revise BM&A3

My Goal: Finish one lesson every two weeks (roughly)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 9, complete
Where I am: Lesson 9, complete
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
You know, I know I’ve done this lesson before, I have the worksheets from the last 2 books to prove it, but I have zero recollection of actually doing it. Wild.

Next lesson is the “Dreaded Monastery” so my updates will be brief the next 2 weeks (he says, when the updates lately have been quite short already).