I'm Battling with the Medical

Yep - it's become a mission.

After feedback from Lucy Gilmour during conference I have been reworking my Medical ms to exclude my heroines best friend. Why? Because she was developing a more exciting voice than my heroine. Why? Because she has a book of her own to come and she obviously didn't feel like waiting patiently.
Sooooo
I'm battling.

The best friend was a pivotel role - now it's another 'bestie'; and he's male; and he's a little bit nuts (not in a good way).

Secret weapon to all this editing???
Yep, you betcha!
My notes from our RWNZ workshop with Molly O'Keefe.
I don't know why but Molly's particular brand of tools to add Tension and Conflict; and then ensure the characters had growth through each conflict, really resonated with me. Perhaps because the pie charts and lists weren't too mind boggling.

If you have a chance to do a workshop with Molly I absolutely recommend it. The bonus is her humour - it's definitely worth the price of a ticket :).

Also - I've tried to keep a track of my mean-ness level.  I have a bad habit of wanting to be nice to my heroines, and that is seriously boring. Hence:
She loses a student on a field trip and has to call emergency services (any teachers worst nightmare)
She injures herself
Everyone finds out she slept with the Hero on the first night (embarrassed - much!)
Hero has a girlfriend (not, but you know there's nothing like a bit of sabotage by a woman scorned, to add conflict)
Hero refuses to let her do what she's trained to do (this is the biggie for both of them)
Father wants her to shift home (she's 29!)
Volcano erupts (a little bit of kiwi realism :) )

Funnily enough, the first time I wrote this it was over a time period of under a month - hello? It kinda stretched the realism - therefore, it now has sentences like "...as the days passed..."

Happy writing everyone.

Haven't moved an inch

Worked hard this today to add 1500 words to WIP. Then stopped to go back and edit chapter three, four and five for my critique partner.

Net total after I chopped out the excess fat and sharpened up the Prose? 100 words. I literally did not move an inch down my manuscript.

The up-side is that I figure my editing must be good if I'm able to be that ruthless (and it deserves a chocolate). I also haven't completely lost those words. The majority have been put in a cut and paste file - they're foreshadowing and enlightenment that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I'll have better chapter(s) to put them in either for this book or a later one in the series.

Which brings me to the important points of this blog post:

1) Never just "delete" your words. If they're good writing that you feel sorry to cut, then put them into a separate file. They could be what you're looking for later, or they could give inspiration when it's what you desperately need.

2) Never be afraid to cut the fat out of your ms. It slows the story down (no matter how important it is!)