Meredith Mansfield, Author

I’m finally beginning to get a little momentum going on the revision to BLOOD WILL TELL. Very little, but even that is a vast improvement over last week. After drafting the new first chapter, I stalled out almost completely on revisions to what is now Chapter 2.

Of course some of that had more to do with real life issues than motivation, but that didn’t account for all of it. I just hadn’t built up enough enthusiasm for the project. I’m doing better, now, although it’s still going more slowly than is usual for me on a revision. I made it through Chapter 2 and halfway through Chapter 3. That’s still slow, but it’s a start.

Some of it was perhaps just hard for me to do. I think it’s just hard for me to get deep into my characters’ emotions early in a story. Like the reader and I don’t know them that well, yet. (Even when I’ve been through this story several times and I actually do know them that well.) But strong emotions are what’s going to make the reader connect with the characters. It needs to be there, right up front.

That’s actually good. It moves me out of my comfort zone. It’s the sort of thing that will get easier with practice, I hope.

I’m making progress now and hope to build some momentum. However, the great thing about revisions is there’s more than one way to approach them. Being a discovery writer, I find I really have to go through the first draft pretty much in order. After all, I’m learning the story, too and it’s just less jumbled if I tell it in order. But there’s no such requirement for revisions. I already know the story. I can take revisions in any order I choose.

I normally do do revisions in order just because it’s neater. But I don’t have to. From this point forward, if I find myself getting stuck, I can just skip to some other part of the story that I’m more excited about. Knowing that should help get me moving.