Gotta step away sometimes

I think this advice can be taken by anyone, not just writers. Every once in a while we need to step back...step away...so we can look at things more objectively.

I am stepping away from my story. It's a novelette I wrote a while back. It was originally just under 10,000 words and was written for a romance magazine that has a 10,000 word max. Obviously they did not want it (well, actually..I'm not sure...I never heard back and it's been a good 7-8 months). I have been editing it like crazy lately...perfecting it, adding to it, in hopes that my publisher will want to publish it. So far I've added over 2000 words to it and really put a ton of energy into showing instead of telling. I think it's miles from where it was when I started.

But now I need to step away. I took an excerpt to my writers group and got some great feedback and some things to work on. I did them and hopefully accomplished what I needed with the changes. But now I need to step back. I need to give this story a rest...I will go back to it in a week or so.

So in the meantime, I did pull out another piece..another romance novelette. This one majorly needs a POV (point of view) change. I'm coming to find I do prefer romance written in 3rd person. It's so nice to include the guy's perspective......considering in real life we NEVER can tell what our man is thinking. At least in fiction, I can give that to my readers! :)

But anyway, I may take next week off....and GASP! no writing/editing whatsoever. Double GASP! I think my brain needs a vacation. I have holiday cards that need to be made and about a zillion photos that need to be cropped and matted and arranged onto unique scrapbook layouts!

One positive thing ....

That comes from resting an out of whack back...tons of writing gets done!!!

After sitting on my couch for seriously 6 hours..with one or two bathroom breaks and a lunch break, I added 2300 words to my novelette!! I am stoked about this!!!

Now comes the hard part. I am almost to 9000 words. It needs to be under 10,000 to submit to the magazine I am writing it for. So, I now need to finish this story in 1000 words. I think I can do it....but I am afraid the story will end too abruptly and problems will be solved too easily. I hate the thought of writing it out without thinking of the word count...and then having to cut out a ton. The story is so short and to the point that I'm not sure there is much that can be cut out. With writing something so short, I have no choice but to stick to the main story (which I think I'm really liking by the way!!), so there really isn't much there that's useless information. I can think of one scene that may be cutable....but we're only talking 500-750 words.