Manuscript Milestones: Writing Update and What’s Next

The grind to the finish line is real. With just one month until the 2025 Online Minnesota Writing Workshop, I am putting in some serious hours to get the first draft completed. Here’s where my novel manuscript stands going into the homestretch.

The Novel Numbers Game

I am currently at 40,837 and 18 chapters words at the time of writing this on Sunday morning. My goal is to wrap up the story within the next 40,000 words, which turns out to be a little over 300 chapter book pages.

During a mid-summer editing round, I cut over 5,000 words and put them in a separate doc, labeled “cuttings.” This document is where I dumped any sentences or passages I wasn’t quite ready to part with, but also didn’t work where they sat. The cuttings doc is turning out to be a random, historically interesting place to open up, like an overstuffed costume closet in the back of a community theater—there are utilitarian transition paragraphs that read like a pair of work boots and then there’s the fluffy, feathered boa writing that is gratuitous and extra, and I probably wrote at a late hour of the night and is probably a rambling, overly poetic description of my main character weeping as she looks out on a lake sunrise, or something like that.

What's Working (and What Wasn’t) 

Halfway through manuscript development, I hit a wall on the plot development and writing, and decided to take a break from adding to the word count and instead take a break for editing, evaluation, and discussion. Because, I told myself justifying the writing lapse, if the characters and plot aren’t likable or interesting, I certainly need to get the train back on the tracks before slogging through another 40k words. 

I applied for the Cocoon Intensive workshop—an eight-week intensive that began in May and included weekly meetings to discuss novel essentials like character development, dialogue, structure, and pacing, as well as actively workshop each other’s pieces. Cocoon is the beautiful brain child of novelist and university professor, Joss Lake.

Cocoon was the first time, since graduating from the University of Iowa almost 20 years ago, that I participated in a workshop environment. So I was a bit rusty and a bit reticent. It was also the first time I had shared my manuscript with anyone, so I had no idea how it was going to land.  E.g. Was opening with a chase scene with a ghost ship too out there? Was my main character the kind you’d like to follow around for a whole 250 pages, etc?

I was wrong to be worried. Cocoon was a lovely experience with lovely, thoughtful people. Each week, after the sessions would conclude, I felt such a sense of wholeness and passion for writing. Like anything was possible and my work was seen and supported. That’s what a good writing group can do for you, and I am very thankful to the experience and recommend it to any writers who are trying to get through a writing challenge or need insight through the refining process.

With peer feedback in hand I was able to address plot and character development challenges that had been plaguing the manuscript. Because I was suffering from a common author malady of being too close to the work and not being able to figure out what’s missing. But what was missing was a sense of character interiority. It is a special challenge when writing a piece of fiction in third person POV—developing how the character thinks and feels and remembers. What past experiences are relevant to now? How can the concept of a main character develop from 2D into 3D?

The plot, for the most part, is staying on track with my original notes. However, I am leaning into more Old Norse mythology and magical realism than originally intended. Before, I exercise some restraint to only include a light wink and a nod for the readers here and there, but now I’m just going full bore and putting in trolls, auroras, mythological references, and anything else that serves the plot and character development.

The Novel Writing Process Evolution (A Writing Cohort Makes a Big Difference!)

Yes, it actually has taken a long time to get this draft complete, and yes I’ve learned so much about myself in the process. Like how you can have the best of attention (for weeks, months, years, decades!), but if you don’t prioritize a process or commit to consistency, the work is absolutely not going to write itself.

Meeting regularly with my Cocoon group was a very good decision for my manuscript because when I went back in to it, I was more easily able to identify plot holes and pacing deficiencies. One of the most helpful pieces of advice Joss gave me was that edits and manuscript improvements should be approached as layers. Each round adding more to the manuscript and making the story more fully realized.

I have set aside the layering until the end of August so that I can crank out the word count and finish the narrative journey end-to-end (that’s keeping me writing about 1,500 words a day or about 75% of one chapter). The layering has actually been the thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night or interrupts me when I’m going for a run or showering. A random scrap of thought can trigger a big “what if?” scenario that spirals into a new angle or interior thought for a particular scene. When I begin revising in earnest in September, I am going to work on smoothing out these layers and addressing where they are thick versus where they are thin and needing more.

The Finish Line Vision

The finish line is far enough away that I’m not thinking of the final bell lap yet. I still have a couple of big hills to commit to and charge, so there’s plenty of work to still do in August. However, I am excited about the work done to-date, I feel energized by the story and the pace of it and I am confident that I’ll be able to see this creative challenge through to the end.

And I have fall to look forward to! It is such a literary time of year with the seasonal change and its cozy trappings. I always find myself in my best author/writer/editor frame-of-mind then, so I am anticipating September and October will be really nice months to do some substantial editing and start querying agents.

I can’t believe we are winding down another summer. The bees and flowers and greenery have brought me so much joy, I’m not sure I’m ready to say goodbye quite yet. But I am excited for what’s next for my main character and novel as it prepares for a new season of its evolution.