I love Tuesdays

Here's the tally for yesterday (Tuesday):

New pages written: 6 (goal: 6.4 pages)
Old pages revised on paper: 0
Pages of revisions typed in: 0
Pages lost or gained due to revisions: 0
Total page count to date: 120 (goal: 200 pages)
Days remaining until D-day: 35

Emails from editor in UK: 0
Emails from agent in NY: 3 (Some chit chat and book 2 delivery dates finalized: Proposal in mid January, Complete on April 1. It's going to be a busy few months.)

Chocolate consumed: Some more of the Darth mix of M&Ms, a piece of chocolate and bowl of ice cream
Junk food consumed: Rice chips (not sure if those are junk food, but at least I ate today)
Exercise: None
Television watched: Commander in Chief and Boston Legal (wrote during them, but hubby was watching)
Pictures of Hayden downloaded: One
Tears: None

Yes, Tuesday is definitely my favorite day of the week. By the time the nanny left today at 4 pm, the kids' homework had been completed, piano practice done, dishes in the dishwasher, the kitchen was clean and pages written. Not a lot of pages, but today I went for quality over quantity. The kind of pages that will actually make it into the book with limited revisions. They already have texture, the five senses, sexual tension and clothing. (I usually don't dress my characters until the final draft so YAY! One less thing to worry about.) Hubby didn't get home until late so I made dinner. Spaghetti and garlic bread. The kids treated us to a song and dance performance of Hillary Duff/Lizzie McGuire songs afterwards. All in all, a very good day.

I wanted to reply to a comment left by Michelle. Craft is not my strong point and I'm very tired so please keep that in mind. She posted: "The toughest part for me now is deciding whether the scene truly needs to be there. There are a few where, if I delete them, the manuscript feels jagged. But they're not quite where they need to be. :/"

I feel your pain! I really do. Some scenes need to go and it's brutal to cut them because most of the extraneous ones are nearest to my heart. Other scenes need to be moved and deciding where can be almost as hard as cutting them. Unfortunately I haven't found an easy answer to where a scene should go. Sometimes it's trial and error. Other times luck. I haven't developed the skill of just knowing yet.

If the manuscript feels jagged, you may only need to rewrite some of the transitions and/or a sequel. Sometimes we don't need entire scenes, but an image/feeling/emotion from a deleted scene that will bring it all together. I also end up combining scenes so one scene can do double duty. That can really help smooth out things plus tighten the story.

Something that has really helped me decide whether I should keep, move or delete a scene is watching DVDs. Listening to the audio commentaries of movies has taught me so much about storytelling and characterization. I love watching the deleted scenes and I use them as teaching tools, too. I can see (and hear) exactly why a scene wasn't included in the final cut at the movie. That's helped me be more objective when I decide what stays and what goes in the manuscript.