For those just joining me, this summer I participated in the Writer in Motion program. 
​In Week 0, we were given a prompt to reflect upon.
In Week 1, we posted our inital, rough, unedited drafts.
In Week 2, we posted our self-edited drafts.
In Week 3, we posted edited stories after receiving feedback from assigned critique partners also participating in the progam.
During Week 4, we received feedback from a professional editor, and posted our final drafts.

This week is a reflective post. What did we learn from the program? What did we love or hate about it? How did it help us and how do we see it helping others?

Going back through, what the early week of Writer in Motion showed me is that I must do more on-the-fly editing than I thought. Keeping in mind that self-editing was for the next week, I actively kept myself from editing. Because of that, I ended up with a mess of a story since I didn't allow myself to erase things that I knew weren't working from the outset. And so, while I thought I believed in the "Write. Don't edit!" words on paper method of writing, it turns out I do not actually practice that method. When I'm "forced" or am trying to follow the rules of "no editing now, only edit later" I end up with everything on paper and it is a mess I despise. 

This makes a lot of sense to me. I tend to believe in "clean first drafts." Therefore, my first draft must be edited as I go along. However, I have never gotten stuck in a first draft because I was editing too much. That's when the "write, don't edit" is required and comes into play.

A big difference this program had is that I require myself to step away from a short story for one week before going back to edit it. I did not have that luxury in order to stay on track for the program. Each week, we were to do some form of editing. I would normally let my edited version sit and be revisited with more time between edits before sending to critique partners (CP). I usually go through CP feedback more than I was able to. There are suggestions and questions my CP raised that I feel could be explored but I simply didn't have time to incorporate because I needed more space and percolation time to do it. Even thinking I'd add them in for the final version, ten days of percolating was not enough to implement those ideas in a coherent manner. 

​I am so glad Erin Fulmer tweeted about this program and I joined it. I wish there was slightly more time and space for writing, reflecting, and implementing feedback. But I also see how it's easier to forget to work on your piece and post it with a two-week interval rather than a one-week interval. I love that the program pairs with editors. Getting editorial feedback above the writers group is an experience I've not had on short work. I'm pleased I was able to get that experience before the stakes are for a story for paid publication.

I will definitely participate again, should Writer in Motion have another season. 

Below is a selection of stories that were written for the program. It is not a complete collection and they are listed in no particular order. The genre and word count vary. Some are portions of novels. Many stories are posted for the program, but may be removed for market submission purposes.
In the Country of Shadow - Adria Bailton 
Fire Season - Erin Fulmer [Short story]
Smoke - Cheyanne Monkman  [Short story]
Smoke on the Water - Kristen [Short story]
The Looking Glass - Megan Van Dyke [Short story]
The Guarded - Amber Roberts [Short story]
Sulphur and Smoke - Meredith Crosbie [Short story]
Ravlenna's Fire - S.M. Roffey [Short story]
​Half Past Chai (or Too Thoughtful for a Haunting) - Keir Alekseii [Portion of a novel]
Becoming the Storm - Stephanie Whitaker [Portion of a novel]
Read more at the Writer in Motion Forums.

For those just joining me, this summer I participated in the Writer in Motion program. 
​In Week 0, we were given a prompt to reflect upon.
In Week 1, we posted our inital, rough, unedited drafts.
In Week 2, we posted our self-edited drafts.
In Week 3, we posted edited stories after receiving feedback from assigned critique partners also participating in the progam.
During Week 4, we received feedback from a professional editor. I was paired with Justin Manzano, who provided helpful feedback in both line edits and a short edit letter. 

I cannot thank my critique partners and editor enough for their feedback in helping me clarify the story, and for correcting that spelling error and line edits.

Below is my final version of In the Country of Shadow.

[Removed for Submission Purposes]

What is Writer in Motion?

• We were given a prompt at Week 0. The goal: to write a 1000-word story, showing our process along the way.
• ​We posted our initial, rough, unedited drafts for Week 1.
• Then we revealed our editing processes and posted self-edited drafts for Week 2. Spoilers: my story changed quite a bit from week 1 to week 2.

You can read some of the other self-edited stories at the Writer in Motion blog.

Week 3 we were assigned a small group of critique partners - other writers participating in Writer in Motion. We read and critique each other's stories. I was paired with Erin, Anthony, and Linda. Their stories were so much fun to read and their feedback helped me shape my story into more of a story, something more coherent, (and correct spellings!) and gave me a little bit of confidence that I was missing during this process. 

My process with CP feedback is to usually receive it, read it, let it sit a few days, and then work through it. I received all my feedback with time to do all that, except my own time management and ability to wrangle tenses eluded my alloted time I'd reserved to work on it. The tenses are still giving me trouble, and I'll need to make sure I get quiet time to tame them for next week.

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What is Writer in Motion? See my Week 0 post. 
What did this story look like when I gave up and posted for Week 1 rough draft? You can read my initial draft at my week 1 post.

Normally, I'd leave a short story at least one week, often much longer, before re-reading it and doing some self-edits. Since it took me to the very last minute to finish my initial draft, and there are deadlines for posting, I didn't have that luxury for this story.

Another stumbling block I've encountered with this story has enlightened me on my writing habits. I often have stories that crop up in my brain and need to be told and I pour them onto the paper (or into the digital Word file as it were.) Sometimes, I use a prompt and it takes me a couple sentences or a minute of thinking, and then the story just flows. And while I don't usually know the end until 40% of the way into the story (which is also when I discover how long the story will be prior to revisions), I always know where the story was going.

Dear Reader, I did not know where this story was going. I never have had such a hard time writing a story. I mentioned last week I would never have bothered to "finish" the draft if I weren't signed up for Writer in Motion. When I looked at the image, I had ideas. I had so many ideas. And all those lovely ideas got me into trouble. Because I didn't let the story simmer long enough and/or I didn't have the appropriate length of time of a deadline. I often will give myself 10 minutes or 30 minutes to write a story based off a prompt. And the furiosity of that writing may lead to giving myself a little more time to finish it. Instead I spent the week trying things and really nothing worked.

What all that comes down to: I had a lot to self-edit.

I started with a 647 word story. I was trying to push to that 1000 word goal. Our stories are supposed to be under 1000 words at the end of this week, or as of this posting. That was clearly not my problem. However, I worried that having too short of a story would also be a problem. The pushing towards the required word count, rather than let the story be whatever word count it wanted, created problems. I kept trying to add in conflicting ideas. I had no clear goal. I kept changing the relationship of the two characters.

Going into edits, I planned to remove the chorus, focus the story, get to a point of conflict and resolution (that didn't exist before) and clean up the copy.

On the 20th, I felt I'd waited as long as I could or I wouldn't have any edits to put forth. I opened my doc, created a week 2 doc, read through, tried to remove the chorus and found the story lost the little bit I liked about it, put the chorus back in, and closed the doc.

I opened the document back up again yesterday. I deleted 279 words, bringing the story down to 367. There was even less story, but I liked it better. I had shaved off all the competing ideas. I worked hard to keep the line that got some positive feedback, scrapping the line about being made of photons, which hurt my scientist's heart. 

I self-edit all short stories with the single thought: what change does my protagonist go through, ie. a protagonist must change in order for it to be a short story. For this story, I actually want the problem my protagonist starts with to be the problem they end with, and the change needed to be that they now accepted themself with this problem. So the conflict became how do they go from wanting to change themselves to accepting this about themselves?

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Visit the #WriterinMotion hashtag on Twitter or the Writer in Motion Week 2 blog post where participants post links to their blogs.

 ​The prompt was revealed on July 9.

On July 10, I wrote 24 words: "I am made of smoke and dreams and things you don’t want to see in the mirror.I live in the country of shadow."

After a particularly frustrating day job work day, on July 14, I wrote more words, ending my evening with 487. I still wasn't sure my plot, but the repeating I miss you. I love you. Let me go.​ introduced itself.​

​Of course, once I called it for the night, I went to bed and immediately came up with more of the story. First thing the next morning, I wrote more, filling out a bit more.

Today's draft is not a finished draft, and it is very, very rough. It is 654 words. It is both too short and too long. 
​
Normally, I wait a week before editing shorts. I won't have that time. I have some tense issues. I already see things I wish to cut, the chorus for one. And I need to fill the story out quite a bit, to edge closer to the 1000 word limit and to round it out for the reader.

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After posting, I edited to add the prompt image and some links.

Adding these more thoughts, just for transparency. I would never post or submit this story. In fact, this story fought me so much, if it weren't for this program, I would not have written it. The story feels too influenced from others, despite me trying not to read other people's responses to the prompt. 

I learned about Writer in Motion from Erin Fulmer. Here's her unedited first draft. 
Keir Alekseii livestreamed her writing, which is a cool idea. View the video and result here. 
Mel Grebing was inspired by the prompt and posted their story as well.

Enjoying all these stories? View all the participants at Writer in Motion Week 1: The Messy First Draft.

Based on the enthusiasm author Erin Fulmer showed for the Writer in Motion project, I joined up during their registration period. 
What is Writer in Motion? It's an opportunity to participate in short story creation and share your journey from draft to polished story via your writer's blog and the Writer in Motion forum. Additionally, the writer is matched up with critique partners (CP) and potentially a professional editor. 
Updates will be given weekly per the Writer in Motion timeline.

Watch my Twitter, check back here, or subscribe to my Newsletter to get regular updates or the summary after all is said and done.