An amazingly kind and patient woman at GoDaddy helped transfer PlotWriMo: Revise Your Novel in a Month to its new home on Vimeo. When she understands what I do for a passion, she proceeds to tell me her whole life story -- one of sacrifice and triumph. Both major plot lines come directly from her heart, one through raising an autistic son and the other reconnecting to a long, long, long lost love.
Finding the woman nearly my same age made me think back more than 30 years ago when I did my graduate work with autistic children and how little we understood of autism then. Kids with all sorts of unidentified and unclassified issues were lumped together with kids all over the autism spectrum. Back then, there was no spectrum. Just a throw-away term for all the kids who were impossible to rein into conforming with mainstream educational and societal expectations.
Hearing this one woman's fight for a fair, non-abusive education for her son back then, my refusal alongside others against the use of cattle prods as a form of punishment for bad behavior and fight to remove it makes me appreciate how far we've come and how much parents with autistic children today owe to so many parents and professionals who never stopped and never will stop fighting for equal rights for all children.
As the GoDaddy helper methodically goes through the steps needed to do what I want to do to, I hug myself, giddy that
PlotWriMo: Revise Your Novel in a Month has a permanent place and is so much better thanks to all
Jill's contributions including concept and voice, every word perfect and revision from an industry insider's point of view.
Giddy must be in the airwaves between us because the helper's voice seems almost to flutter in anticipation of next week meeting again for the first time her first and true love after a more than 40-year separation. Communicating in the myriad of non-same place and same time avenues available today, she and her beloved found that rather than follow the conventional path they'd each chased separated, the unconventional path they'd stumbled upon had made them more of who they were at 17 years old.
Do you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?
Can you imagine living with a sense of freedom and abandon with lessons learned and abilities integrated and minus all that no longer serves you? Minus the shoulds, embracing your highest self.
Today I write!
~~~~~Take the PlotWriMo Pre-Challenge:
~~~~~~~~PLOT WORKSHOPS and RETREATS
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For more: Read my
Plot Whisperer and Blockbuster Plots books for writers.
Q: Last week I did something I didn't know I'd be able to do though had the drive to do it. It's taken 20 months to do it, but I've completed my first draft- I have a manuscript! Woot woot! So much of your influence pushed me to it, btw!
Anyway, I was wondering how you go about re-writing/editing. Do you do a full read through first? Do you just start with spelling checking? How do you make sure it's fluid from the color of a shirt in one scene to the next, etc.....
A: Congratulations!
See my previous post for an understanding of how I define the difference between a re-write and a re-vision.
During PlotWriMo throughout the month of December, I post daily exercises designed to re-vision the rough draft you've written (as in NaNoWriMo) for the first major re-write. I've published those steps in the Before the Next Draft ebook. The exercises in The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories do the exact same thing.
Essentially, I recommend putting aside the manuscript for at least a couple of weeks. During that time, stand back and re-vision the story now that you know the beginning, middle and end.
Don't worry about the specific details until you're confident that the plot and structure are working.
Once the skeleton and foundation are in place, that's the time to concentrate on the essential plot elements in every single scene.
This is a time of taking what you wrote during the generative stage and crafting it into a story. Happy plotting!
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