Photo credit: Junior Moran on Unsplash

I’ve finished. At least, sort of.

Is there still material to write? Yes. Should I have worked on that today? Yes. Did I do it? No. What did I do instead?

Start from the beginning and edit what was already there.

Was this a good idea? Who knows?

To back up a little: last night, I fell into bed by midnight which—for me—is extremely early, but I was exhausted. Except for a few brief occasions when Ned woke me, meowing for food (which he didn’t get), I slept until about 9:30.

I had grand plans for the day. Laundry, housework, bill-paying, minor home repairs, errands—and, of course, writing. Except it didn’t turn out that way.

Apparently, Olivia feels I require supervision

Day Twelve is now in the bank, albeit a day late. I have two more days to this challenge.

Obviously, I won’t finish the book in two days. I was naïve to think it was possible. But I’m a whole lot closer than I was two weeks ago.

Some of what remains is simply about making choices: will a character do A or B? I’ve written both versions. It’s time to choose. See which version is more lifelike, more resonant, more emotional. See which offers the best options for conflict and resolution. See which advances the story and which is merely a tangent.

Photo credit: milivigerova on Pixabay

A much better day today. For one thing, I just finished, and it’s not even 11:40 p.m. So, relatively early night.

Second—and more importantly—I made actual progress. I did some editing, which went back to the ever-important question, Did I cut more than I wrote? But in the end, I ended up 1,000 words ahead of where I started, which is definitely a win.

Yes, the clock was accurate.

See that clock? That’s when I started writing for Day 10.

I didn’t write 1,000 words. I worked on my book for around forty-five minutes before I called it a night. But I did write.

To back up: Monday was a busy day. Working around a follow-up appointment with the surgeon’s office (they say all is well!), then researching and writing three motions that need to be filed today (didn’t finish until about half an hour ago), interrupted by a board meeting (on Zoom, thank heaven), after which I fed the cats and microwaved leftovers for my own dinner as I resumed work on the motions.