Pat Zabriskie
The next nine days, we
scribes, will work on chapters 4 and 5 of Wiesner’s book, First Draft in 30 Days. This experience has been challenging, instructional,
perplexing, enlightening, and just plain fun. At one stage or another I’ve felt
them all.
This past week I worked on
“incorporating” my summary outline, scene notes, and all sorts of things into
my “formatted outline.” And some days, I’ve spent time just writing scenes. Not
sure where they’ll all go, but I have a glimmer of hope that these elements will indeed come together.
At this stage, the author
warned us that our material may look like a big mess right now. I’m glad she
said that because mine is a mess of folders and notes and scenes and sometimes
I feel surrounded by giant piles of paper (I’m not), but then I make progress
in getting the correct folders around me.
This semi-order suits me and
I take off hither and yon where the characters or plot takes me. Then it’s fun
again.
One delightful surprise has
been my ability to stay at the desk and work longer than I imagined I could.
Last year, I was ill and out of it. The beginning of the year marked a
turnaround in my health and I’m enjoying it. But I wondered if the
weariness of last year’s pain would follow me into work time. It didn’t. (Thank
you, Lord.)
As a group, we’ve had
interruptions and necessities intrude on our writing time, and we probably won’t
accomplish the project in 30 days. Nonetheless, we expect to see completion
not too long into July.
No matter, we are proving to
ourselves that we can indeed work better and accomplish more with a goal and
with friends sharing the experience.
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