Writing Wednesdays By Lisa

Happy Hump Day!

We’re excited to be debuting our feature, Writing Wednesdays where we’ll, well, write about writing. On Wednesdays.

And to celebrate, we’re giving away five HeartThreads t-shirts with messages about love, wisdom, faith and inspiration worn close to the heart! Get it? Just leave a comment on this post (like how much you love us and our writing! *wink* *wink* ) and be entered to win.

So, back to Writing Wednesdays. As much as we LOVE to bag on The Bachelor and spout off about our relationships here at CLIND, “wax poetic” about books for Barnes and Noble and She Knows and make quips about parenting for Real Moms Guide, writing books is our #1 passion.

As many of you know, we’re in the homestretch of completing The D Word, our dual narrative novel about two women who walked away from their relationships because they thought they wanted more. But when more turns out to be the complicated world of divorce, they begin to second-guess everything.

And as we prepare to plunge head first into the pool with all of the other hungry writers hoping to find the perfect agent and publisher for his/her book, we hope you’ll follow along with us as we reveal the good, the bad and undoubtedly, very ugly parts of our literary journey.

We’re proud to report that so far, it’s been mostly good with just a tiny bit bad and one part fugly mixed in!

104,000 words

6 months

3 days at a “writing retreat” in Palm Springs (shout out to our cabana boys!)

2 plot changes

1 virtual door slam=

Our nearly completed manuscript.

We’re almost there. So close. We can smell the paper of the final draft as it’s coming off the printer. We can see the manuscript being sent to prospective agents that have requested a partial or *crossing fingers* a full! But it’s just out of reach because we’re still in the editing process. A place we could live for the rest of our lives if we’re, or should I say “I’m”, not careful.

Which brings me back to the virtual door slam. Which I can say I deserved. Liz was fed up with my editing tactics and basically hung up on me over email. If I was my own writing partner, I would’ve done the same. Because there comes a time when you just have to let go and accept that you’re officially done tweaking your ms. Or you run the risk of ending up like my eyebrows did after I finally discovered tweezers- with not much left. And without getting into all the “gory” details of  the angry email Liz wrote to me, I can tell you it was something along the lines of: You. Have. To. Freakin’. Stop. Now. (Okay, so maybe she used a different variation of freakin’-one that rhymes with plucking.)

But it’s just so hard. I’m like a crack addict trying not to hit the pipe. Like the woman on a diet who swears she won’t break into the leftover Halloween candy. Like the shopaholic who convinces herself that “online” shopping isn’t as bad. I go into the ms with the intention of only looking for missing words or punctuation errors. But then I notice a sentence that maybe if I worded it just a little differently, could be even better. And before I know it, I’ve re-written two paragraphs! And Liz is using variations of freakin’ all over again.

So I’ve now made an official promise to Liz that I’m letting go. This week, we’re doing our final read through and unless there’s an entire chapter missing, I’m really not allowed to touch it. And this is why it’s good to have a writing partner. You can balance each other out. Her weaknesses (remembering not to write emails before caffeine) are often my strengths (remembering not to read her emails before 10:30 a.m. CST) and vice versa.

Wish us luck reaching our editing deadline in one piece! Although I’m assuming that if we haven’t killed each other so far (and believe me, there have been opportunities that could have sent even Gandhi down the violent path), we’re really in no serious danger of a death by Chick Lit manuscript anytime soon.

xoxo, Lisa

Tagged as: agent, caffeine, Chick Lit, Faith, Gandhi, Halloween, HeartThreads, Inspiration, literary journey, Love, manuscript, ms, Palm Springs, publisher, The Bachelor, The D Word, Wisdom, Writing Wednesdays