This week I will finish the SIXTH draft of Windfall. Wow! Six drafts in about seven months. And every draft I feel is the last one until I send it out to my reader friends. Wonder what they’re going to find this time. Oh well, if there is to be a seventh, I’m sure it will be better than the sixth. Will I ever hear the words. “Faith, this is perfect.”? Start querying! Doubt it.
But, I’m not complaining, I’m willing to do the work if it makes the story stronger. If it increases my chances of having a feature shown at the movie theatres.
Over at MoviePoet, I’ve got to come up with a one-page script for this month’s challenge. So far, I’m hitting a brick wall. I’m about 2/3 of the way through reviewing the scripts for last month’s challenge. My entry for that contest (A Thousand Words) was way out of my comfort zone so it’ll be interesting to see how I did. It was a weird story but, it definitely had a beginning, middle, and end.
Write on!
Hi! I don’t think any of us will ever be able to look at our own work and come up with the word “perfect.” We serve as our worst critics, even when looking at the best of our writing.
Guess the secret is knowing when to stop changing things. In my work as an editor, I’ve seen a lot of writers who finally get the manuscript to an optimal point, but then they continue to revise and end up going backwards. I’ve done the same thing too with a number of my stories.
So we need to be able to recognize when we’ve maximized a particular piece of writing and to know that, if we step over one more revision line, we’ll only mess things up. Sometimes we need someone else, like a professional editor, to tell us when to stop, or we might never reach the end.
I know exactly what you mean. I’m “feeling” like I’m close to the end with this one. We’ll see what the reviewers say!