Hey, everyone! Summer has nearly arrived here in the Smucker household, or at least if you’re defining summer by children being out of school. Graduation was on Friday night, our son’s grad party was Saturday night, and now all non-seniors in the house have 1 1/2 days left of school. I’m sure lots of learning takes place in these last few hours of the school year.
We’ve had a fair amount of new people hopping in here with us, so here’s a photo of the family from this weekend’s festivities, ages 45 to 5. I’m still trying to figure out how a group of people can be so precious to me.
Leo’s really into giving the peace sign these days, but is there such a thing as too much peace? In every face in this photo there’s a long story about how each of us is doing, what we’re struggling with, where we’re succeeding—it’s the miracle of being human.
Another miracle: the weather was beautiful all weekend, and we were thankful for that.
Now on to the terrifying stuff…
If you’re a paying subscriber, you’ve heard me talk in recent videos about how I’m moving on from first draft writing to revising. I’ve got around 60,000 words in the first draft, probably a bit on the short end for a novel, but I have a fair amount of scenes I’d like to add and other parts of the story I want to flesh out, so I think it will end up just about right.
Here’s my plan moving forward. I want to bring you along on my revision process, even though sharing the first draft of my work terrifies me. Feels a bit like those dreams where I am back in a college classroom, not having studied for the test and having forgotten to put on any clothes.
Starting next Monday, June 13th, I will (for paying subscribers) post the first draft of a chapter along with my goals for the chapter: changes I want to make, areas I want to strengthen, revisions I plan on doing, etc. Then, on Friday, I’ll post the revised chapter for you to take a look at.
We’ll move along like that, roughly a chapter a week. Sometimes, I’d imagine, it will take longer to revise a chapter, and in some cases I’ll be writing new material, but that’s a general plan, for now.
If you’re interested in tagging along on the revision journey, or if you’d just like access to read my current work-in-progress, make sure you’re a paying subscriber! You can do that here:
I’ll post a few more videos this week as I finish up on my revision preparations, and then next week we’ll jump into it. Thanks for coming along on another journey with me. We’re always trying new things, aren’t we?
Keep writing.