just because it's done, doesn't mean it's done

Current Project: The Witch of the Little Wood
New Words: 5,254 new words over three days, which was brought down to 3,614 words after editing
Current Total Word Count: 17,304!
Goal: Complete the story (this short story is definitely a novlette).

Random Rough Sentence(s): Devan’s body felt like it was made of lead, so heavy that she couldn’t move, so heavy that she was sinking into the couch, sinking past the cushions, snapping springs and cracking the wood frame.

Notes: I’m calling this draft of the story done, completed, in its entirety — more or less. When initially outlining the story, I had planned on ending it on another scene. However, when it came to writing that scene, it felt far too much like an epilogue or the start of a new story, so I left it alone.

I think my ending scene works, but I’m not in love with it.

At this point, I’m going to put it aside and work on something else. In a few weeks (probably after I get back from Australia), I’ll look at the whole beast and assess how everything fits together, whether the scene breaks work, and if the past/present jumps are cohesive. Right now, I’m feeling that it doesn’t, that it’s missing something vital, and that the resolution isn’t strong enough. I tend trust my gut in writing, though I have to be careful and not confuse “gut” with “anxiety” or “fear of failure”. I’m pretty sure that my gut is guiding me true, though, and that the story does need work. I want to try to submit to magazines as a short story, so that will probably mean trimming it a bit, too.

While I’m letting that simmer, I’ll be throwing together a retelling of Cinderella in short-short story format, as well as doing some outlining for the Untitled Werewolf Novel, which I’m planning to launch into.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]