I apologize for missing Monday’s WIP post.  The reason for my failure is pretty simple:  WIP stands for Work in Progress, and I was feeling as if I had made so little progress over the course of the week that I just didn’t know what to write.

But really, in looking back at the week, I realize that once again, I was relying on a poorly-conceived definition of progress.  If progress is defined only by word count, then it’s true that I made little progress this week.  I did get a few new words here  and there, but nothing like I’d been hoping to get, so it felt like very little progress.

However, if progress is defined simply as moving forward, then I think I should actually be pretty pleased with myself.

First, I spent some time reconsidering the novel’s arrangement.  I’ve decided to go back to my original plan, which was to open with Aniela’s story and close with Josef’s, and in between, present the second- and third-generation stories in birth order.  I spent much of this morning moving all of them (in a saved-as document, not an overwrite) and creating a new TOC.  This led to some reconceptualizing, which led to a decision to include an additional chapter I hadn’t originally planned.

Then I rewrote the Foreword.  I’m not sure at this point whether or not it will appear in the final draft of the novel, but for now, it’s there, and I like it, so for now, it’s staying.

And then I wrote a sort of prequel to Aniela’s story, based on an idea that came unexpectedly out of nowhere.  Again, I’m not sure whether or not it will appear in the final version of the book, but it provides me with some interesting options.

I also spent time this week exploring the novel’s themes and making sure each of the stories is sufficiently focused on them.   I’m hoping that this mid-course evaluation will put me in a position to write the remaining stories in a way that ties up any loose ends left by the others.

This “new” draft is almost ready to print out as a hard copy.  I already know it will be one-sided, three-hole punched, and “bound” in a three-ring binder—no difficult decisions ahead of me this time.

It’s all coming together.  I’m getting excited.

But I realize this isn’t the most enlightening of posts, so in an attempt to make up for my own failure, I’m sharing a link to the “For Writers” page on Ronlyn Domingue’s website.  (Domingue is the author of The Mapmaker’s War and The Mercy of Thin Air.  I haven’t read either one, but I did check out the reviews of Mercy.  Wow.)

Anyway I hope you’ll find the “For Writers” page as valuable—that is, as informative and as inspiring—as I do.

Here’s to a great coming week with lots of progress, no matter how you define it!