I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Instead, I’ve been busy working on edits for STAINED GLASS SUMMER. (December 30, 2011). I’m happy to say that we have wrapped up content and line edits and the manuscript is now moving on for copy edits and formatting. My editor and I did three rounds of edits on STAINED GLASS SUMMER. Each time, I thought okay, this is the last time, and she won’t find anything else. And then she’d send it back, and there would be more to edit. None of the edits were major structure or character edits. I didn’t have to take out any characters, change any plot points, or rearrange a location. Instead, the edits focused around things like words I used too often (lean, peak, smile, and glance), editing sentences with dangling participles, or questioning logistics such as a scene where Jasmine and Cole are out on a motor boat and don’t have life-vests! Yes–now they wear life-vests in that scene!
But, editing uses a different part of my creativity than drafting a story, and I have found myself missing some of the fun of drafting a new story. I won’t be working on a new story for another few months. Next up to edit will be WEAVING MAGIC (April 27, 2012), so I decided the best way to engage my drafting brain was to play with short writing prompts a couple times a week.
Here are a few writing prompts that I’m using:
“In my old neighborhood….”
“In the basement….”
“My lucky charm was lost…”
“Remember my name…”
“The things we left behind…”
Mindy Hardwick's Blog 
Leave a Reply