Time for this WIPmarathon’s first check-in!
My goal for this WIPmarathon is detailed here. Basically, to finish the WIP and do revisions so that the ms was in a fit state for beta reading. And guess what? it’s DONE! 🙂
Last Check-in Wordcount: 68, 000
Current WC: 69, 000
WIP Issues this week: Because I write in alternating POV and had switched things around in the beginning, I had this one pesky empty chapter with the very helpful ‘stuff happens’ as a summary. It took me a while to rearrange and figure out how to fill the gap, but eventually I worked it out after many long walks with the dog and equally long showers mulling over characters and plot.
What I learnt this week in writing: That sometimes my writing isn’t actually as awful as it first seems. There’s nothing nicer than reading over first draft chapters and being pleasantly surprised by how much they don’t suck – that’s not to say the didn’t and won’t still need a LOT of work, but it wasn’t quite shift+delete worthy either. I also learned that while plotting helped immensely with this WIP, I am still a pantser at heart. I need to embrace and not shun that.
What distracted me this week while writing: Work and the NA writing workshop I’m doing where I’m reworking last WIPmarathon’s novel which stalled around 32k. I really love those characters and that story so I’ve been dying to dive back into it and now that cyborgs are done, I can!
Last 200 words: The last 200 words I worked on are the last 200 words of my story and that’s kinda spoilery so I’d rather share 200 words from one of my favourite scenes…
No, Wraith certainly doesn’t need help dressing puncture wounds in his shoulder, the shoulder currently pumping up and down as he does handstand push-ups, his bare feet grazing the wall behind him.
“Need something?” He asks, his biceps bulging as he holds the position.
I can’t stop staring. There’s something breathtaking about the human body defying gravity like that, each muscle honed to perfection working in unison, and a layer of scars slithering across taught skin like ripples in a pond every time he moves. I want to draw him, shading in charcoal and sienna, tracing every angle of his form, from the plains of –
“Omyn?” He flips out of the handstand, a grin playing on his lips.
“Hm?” Bullet hole scars like rosettes, six-pack abs, blue veins slithering south.
“You were asking me something.” The guy drops into one-handed regular push-ups and it takes every inch of will-power to lift my gaze from the concave shallows of his lower back up his spine, to shoulders that bunch and release beneath a patina of keloid. Paint would be better. I want to paint those shoulders, to capture every ridge and trough.
“Um.” My mouth is drier than the chem lands.
So now I eagerly/nervously await feedback from betas and will be turning my attention to the NA story I’ve been trying to write since April.
How did everyone else do this week?
