Back to the Drawing Board

Yep. Back to the ol' Drawing Board. Time to review and tweak my outline.

Why? Because of my editor's comments. She gave me lots to think about, but the piece of feedback that will take the most amount of work deals with my setting. She highlighted something I hadn't considered. My story takes place in 17th century Scotland, which is very popular with other writers. So, she asked, how was I going to make my story stand out from the rest?

Um... After a few days of letting her question percolate, I have an idea. An idea that means lots of research and playing with facts and maybe even physics.

Fortunately, the work I've done so far won't be a complete waste as I can use most of my material. However, I predict major tweaks to how the setting interacts with my characters and vice versa. I think. At this stage, it's hard for me to predict how it will all come out.

While this problem-solving/creating effort, if not exactly exciting, is enticing, it means that the finish date of the story just got pushed out even further to some undetermined date. (Can you hear my frustrated sigh?) No, I haven't succumbed to the urge to ditch the story. And fortunately, my coach reminded me that any movement is better than no movement. So, I'll just suck it up and get it done.

To that end, I've printed out my latest outline and begun my research. Let the tweaking and twisting begin. How diabolical unique can I be? Time will tell.

In the meantime, I hope the Drawing Board is ready, cuz here I come.

Almost there...

Well, not quite. The family and I have about three hours, according to Google Maps before we arrive at our destination. I brought my laptop with me so I could type while the hubby drives. I'm a bit of a back-seat driver, so as you can probably guess, not much writing yet.

However, while I thought of a photo to this post for your visual pleasure, I wondered if I could incorporate the scene into my NaNoWriMo novel, which is currently at 61% of the 50k word goal. The scene I'm working on, when I finish his post, is set on a private beach, but we're driving through the California desert. It'll be a stretch, but I'm going to give it a try. If after I write it in I decide that it doesn't belong, it's just a draft and I can take care of it later. That's what the revision stage is for, right? But trust me, I don't want to do more work than necessary, I'm going to think about this a bit, after all I need a distraction so I can leave the husband to driving.

So, here's to creativity, safe driving on the road, and on the computer.

For those curious about why we're driving in CA, our Irish Dancer daughter is competing with a team of 8 dancers at the western regional competition. Good luck to all of the Maguire Dancers!