This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 1 Result
On June 22, one day before the official start of the write-a-thon, I finished the draft of a short story. I’m bending the rules a bit, and calling that the first of the two short stories, so I’m already 50% of the way to Goal 2! Wednesday and Thursday mostly went toward polishing this story. I’m going to have one more reader look at it, but hope to send it to market Monday or Tuesday.

And the novel? Well…on June 17 I finished the first major section of the story, and then realized my outline was wildly out of date, and that I had only the fuzziest idea of what would happen next. So progress stopped while I considered everything, and contemplated, and brainstormed, and worked on other projects. That process continued through most of this past week. Then on Friday I put together a new style of outline for the next two sections of the book. This clarified things, and I was suddenly able to start writing again. Friday and Saturday combined produced 3600 new (albeit rough) words, 18% of my goal.

I have a strong suspicion I’ll be cutting a lot of wordage out of this section on second draft. This is rare for me. I tend to underwrite the first draft, not overwrite. But for now the object is to get a complete first draft, so…onward!

Posted on: Sunday, June 30th, 2013 at 8:01 am
Categories: Clarion West Write-a-thon.