My progress so far…

Hi everyone,

Here’s what I’ve been up to in terms of writing. I finished my micro-tension draft and cut all the words needed (plus more-ecstatic about that) to make room for the new micro-tension. It totaled 122 additions and 6K words. I was a little worried that the micro-tension missed the mark. I don’t want my character to sound whiny or to repeat myself, so I sent it off to two beta readers who both highlighted lots of the new micro-tension additions saying they loved them, without knowing they were new or the reason why I’d sent the novel to them. So I’m super happy with that. Both loved the story. For both, I had to explain a few made-up words and concepts more. I have a fear of info-dumping and over-explaining so I land on the under-explaining side. I’ve made those additions. I hope I haven’t gone the other way. I should proofread it again to make sure I didn’t add in any typos (which is something I do and causes me no end of frustration).

So I’ll give the novel another pass to make sure it’s okay and I didn’t add in weirdness but there’s not much else to do. I have to STOP tinkering with it and go on to THE SEARCH FOR MAGIC (SfM). I’m just past the midpoint of draft two and I’m dying to get back into it. I haven’t touched it since I left for Ireland.

I’ll do a post about all the different types of micro-tension I added, but that will take me a bit to formulate and I want to get stuck back into SfM so it will be a few weeks before I post that one.

Also, I’m moving this diary to weekly posts so I can focus on finishing draft 2 of SfM.

Alright, that’s all from me right now. I’m excited about writing.

Talk again next week,

Joanne.