On my recent writing residency, I accomplished a short ton, failed to accomplish a metric ton, and learned a long ton.
The TL;DR takeaway: If you've never experienced a residency, whether as a writing fellow or on a private retreat of your own design, put this activity on the top of your bucket list.
As longtime readers know, I write a...ton about the worth-more-than-its-weight-in-gold value of putting your writing in a virtual or literal drawer for a time in order to acquire the distance needed to see it anew — and therefore be prepared to read like a reader and edit like an editor.
About a year had elapsed since I'd read through my manuscript-in-progress from start to finish. I took an entire day to read carefully from first word to last. I slashed about 15k words (from 66k)! Redundancies and irrelevancies, overwriting and too-slow pacing — chiseled away.
Because I don't write chronologically, I found places where I'd briefly mention something or someone early in the manuscript, with all necessary context occurring 20k words later. I moved passages around, left myself annotated notes throughout, and just generally ripped the manuscript apart and pieced it back together. An almost physical developmental edit.
Given how concerned I've been about the unwieldy length the book was moving toward, it was thrilling to cut so much deadweight with such little agony. (Granted, some of those cuts moved into my "to be written" file, meaning some of what I removed will be surgically re-implanted when I'm clear on placement and function.)
I don't recommend waiting a year. It wasn't my intention — life got in the way, as it does. That said, I can't emphasize enough that only the distance in time put me at the perfect distance in perspective. And only the extended time of the residency, with no daily obligations beyond writing, opened the door wide to unbounded creative space.
What I accomplished on my to-do list:
Discovered the specific shape my hybrid, braided structure will take, inclusive of how the three distinct segments interplay. Two braid segments were never in question, as they together formed the crux of the book from the beginning. But the third, the anchor (or the foil, depending on how you look at it) was much harder to settle on, and doing so was in some ways the biggest win of all my wins. Clarifying the third meant I could finally chart the book's overall narrative form. This lack of clarity hobbled me, and I'm thrilled it's gone.
Organized the manuscript, opening to ending. Not only did this lead to the cuts described above, it revealed the spaces where need-to-be-written sections will go. To facilitate this, I created two timelines, then compared them with what I'd already written. The manuscript is now clearly marked with not only what's missing exactly, but also where it must be located precisely.
"Cleaned out" my Scrivener files of to-be-writtens, unfinished scenes, brief images and phrasing, and "dump docs" of ideas. I organized the "dump docs" by character, theme, and braid, whatever was most appropriate, and cut everything that clearly didn't fit. In addition to the 15k or so words I cut while reading through the manuscript all at once, a lot of items were removed in this process — whether forever or just from this manuscript remains to be seen.
Read and took notes on all source material gathered up to this point and identified the remaining research needed.
What I did not accomplish on my to-do list:
Writing anything new. Of course, this isn't entirely true, as my cuts and reorganization and newfound clarity led to revision. But I did not add substantively to the manuscript. That was disappointing, but my over-ambition was the problem. I simply ran out of time. Yet, knowing I would run out of time, I spent my last couple of days dropping many breadcrumb trails, painting color blazes, and staking directional signs to ensure I can pick up the threads when I sit to write again in my "regular" life.
Read the pile of craft books I'd brought with me. I finished only one, a novel, in small bits at bedtime.
What I accomplished that was not on my to-do list:
Met wonderful people, artists and writers and composers, whose work and philosophies inspired, motivated, and frustrated me. At dinner the first night, I sat with two poets, a novelist, a painter, and a musician. As I texted my children, "this was not my usual dinnertime conversation." In a good, a very good, way.