Day Thirty-Seven

DAY THIRTY-SEVEN

Well good morning! I hope you had an awesome day yesterday and are looking forward to another great one.

Today I've finished the formatting and Editor's notes of chapter nine. Woohoo! This now means for the rest of it I can delve deep into the story and make the corrections for this stage.

I'm excited.

Just to remind myself and acknowledge that I'm "slave" to it, I have the logline on the corner of the monitor where I can see it (stuck on there). This means I read it frequently to make sure that the book is moving in that direction.

Remember, here is that line:

"Cynical by nature, a photographer discovers that she's haunted by a being after she starts having a recurring dream, revealing a secret that only the dead know - with the entity bent on keeping it."

The title of the novel is:

"Dream, Recurring"

Why is this important?

Well, I've found that it's way too easy to become distracted in the sub-story lines. Suddenly it's a major focus of the book, when it was only meant to carry on as another layer.

Writing is about rewriting. However, at a certain point I'm going to be saying "it's ready".

What I've learned when writing over 76,000+ words is that if you don't remain centered on your story then you will not produce the manuscript that you wanted in the first place.

This is why a good logline really helps to keep your attention on it. (Of course having the rest is important too. Synopsis, treatment and general outline.) All of these help to get the narrative where you want it.

For my next novel, this is what I will do BEFORE my first draft. I have a feeling that it'll be way easier.

Anyway, I hope you have a great day and thank you again for being here!

Mark