Mistress Novel is done!* (also Script Frenzy / Write Goal update)

*= For the moment.

I didn’t get a chance to blog about it because of various Script Frenzy and Three Oranges related deadlines, but I managed to finish my edits/rewrites of Mistress Novel before April 1st. For the sake of argument, I’m calling this the second draft which is funny because it’s actually more like the 9000th draft. But, as it’s only the second time I felt that “Whew! I’m finished” feeling, the term second draft feels appropriate.

I’m extremely fortunate that I have a great network of friends and fellow writers who volunteered as beta readers. I gave my beta readers a full 20 days to read the book because I didn’t want anyone to feel rushed. (I’m hyper aware of what a big favor I’m asking of them.) But I have to confess that the suspense is killing me! Luckily, some of my beta readers are wonderful, fantastic overachievers and I’ve already got some comments back.

As I write this, I’m actually four pages behind on Script Frenzy. On the plus side, my script is going well. Mind you, it’s terrible, just like a first draft usually is, but the characters are cool and the plot makes sense (mostly) so there isn’t much more you can ask for. I was trying to think about what was so different about this year’s script frenzy and I realized that normally during NaNoWriMo or script frenzy, the challenge is one of my top priorities. This was the first year when I really had so many different writing projects going on that Script Frenzy was just an afterthought. This isn’t to say I’m not committed to finishing, because I am, it’s just that I haven’t concentrated as much time on it as I usually do. I actually think this is a good thing. I’ve successfully juggled about five different major writing projects this month, and the fact that none of them suffered makes me feel like I might be getting the hang of this writer thing. 🙂

That said, the voice program and I are going to try to make a serious dent in that page count by the end of today. The one big pain is that the voice program doesn’t work at all in my script writing software (it does insane things like insert words in the middle of other words because it’s not an approved program). But, after much trial and error, I figured out how to write in Word and then import into the script writing software with only a minimum amount of extra work. This has made my life much easier because the voice program works much better in Word then it does any other program.

Also? Writing a play with dictation is much easier than writing fiction. The only downside is that I’m constantly talking to myself. And since most of the play’s two people fighting, I fight with myself as well. It’s fun. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have to import back into the script writing software, I’d be whipping through it because the dictation program types wicked fast. So there’s that.

Ages ago, I promised you an update on my writing goal for the year. When I got back from vacation, I was insanely behind. You’ll get some sense of how behind when I tell you that I’m totally psyched to be less than 40,000 words behind because I was determined never to be more than a NaNoWriMo behind again. (The one mildly depressing thing was that I was actually caught up for a full two weeks before I left for vacation.)

As you can see from my little graph, I’ve been mostly on pace since I got back from vacation, but I never really made up my deficit. I’ve also been doing a lot of editing which is, of course, bad for the word count. But one thing that was very exciting is that I passed 100,000 words recently. Considering last year’s goal was 200,000 words and I’ve already hit the halfway point before we are out of April, I’m feeling good about my chances of actually hitting the 500,000 words by the end of the year.

So, where are we? Potato, will you do the honors?

Still a long way to go… And I’m over 37k behind… But, as the British say,

I have lots of Three Oranges news for you, but that will have to wait for another update. Happy writing everyone!