A deadline presents itself

Last week I read through my manuscript, made some notes and then did a scene by scene exercise where I wrote down a brief description of each scene in the manuscript. It didn't take long to get the scenes down - only about three hours - and it's a really useful way to find holes in the manuscript and scenes that are out of time sequence.

The exercise has shown me that I definately need to extend the 'time' of the narrative. Originally, all the action happened within about 10 days, but now with the new scenes I've written, that's not going to be enough. That means I have a couple more new scenes to write to fill in the gaps.

Another thing I noticed that parts of the original manuscript that remain don't have the same tone as the new sections. And that there are some scenes that I really don't need any more.

So, looks like there's one final rewrite to go. And it has to be finished by the end of July to meet the 31 July deadline for the Text Publishing YA competiton. The first prize is a $10,000 publishing contract - now that's enough to get me motivated to finish!

Maybe it's time the rewriting stopped...

It's time to start tying all the bits and pieces together. This manuscript has changes so much from my original draft that it's almost a completely different story! And there comes a point where you have to stop rewriting, take a deep breath, take stock of where the story is and make a decision about its future.

Doing the masters course has really helped in the development of this manuscript. But I think it's time that I stopped the constant rewriting and started to hone the final draft. Otherwise I could be stuck in a kind of groundhog day rewriting loop, and that is a place I don't want to be.

So this weekend, I'm printing out the whole manuscript and reading it from start to finish. Let's hope I like what I read...