WIP....Thursday?

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Yes, I know, WIP Wednesday is, well, Wednesday! Today is not Wednesday obviously, but yesterday I had the great fun of spraining my ankle (don’t worry - that was sarcasm). I’ll tell you all about it later this week in my response to my writing prompt for the week, it turned out to fit my life this week in more ways than one!

This last week (when things weren’t going wrong) I’ve been reading through the first book I ever attempted to write (adjust for whether I completed that read-through or not). I did this read through it with the intent of picking it back up and finishing it. It’s been a strange experience.

I posted on Twitter the other day that, “Reading through an old piece of writing is like finding a $20 left in your pocket. ‘Why hello there! Where did you come from?’” It’s been about a year and a half since I last looked at this, and I hadn’t really touched it much in the half of year before that, which means it’s just long enough for some of it to have fuzzed in my brain. There are parts that I remember clearly, and other’s that I look at and go, “Wow! I wrote that? That’s good!” and then sit there and wonder if anyone else would agree with me.

Doing this read-through is an education in of itself. I’m realizing just how much I’ve learned since I started “Jemnath” (working title) four years ago. That’s encouraging as I contemplate finishing something I was completely stuck on for a long time. At the same time I’m realizing how good what I already have down is. I’m not trying to say it’s worthy of any prizes or anything, simply that I’m really enjoying reading it, and that’s comforting. If I am enjoying it there’s a much greater chance I’ll finish it, and that other people will enjoy reading it somewhere down the line!

I finished the read through a little bit before writing this post - and I’m really excited about that! I still have some work before I get to start writing on it again. While I now have the main story in Scrivener (the program I’m now using), I don’t have any of my support files (with character profiles and such), and I’ll need those as I continue working. I also need to do some planning, pulling notes I made while reading together, and figure out what’s happening next.

Still, it’s really exciting! I really love this story, and working on it again, knowing I now have the tools I need to complete it, is a wonderful feeling. Do you have any stories like that? Things you hadn’t completed that you are now ready to finish?

~ Ruthie ~