Arc, What Arc?

I have been working on my writing of a very long time, reluctantly. Now I know why. My WIP is an uncoordinated mess. I found this out from a wonderful new friend who lives in Sydney, Australia. We exchanged bits and then she asked for my whole WIP and that is when I am sure I heard sniggering clear over here in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Don't get me wrong, she is a very polite lady and she didn't come right out and give me a cyber belly laugh, I think I only imagined it, but it was obvious from her emails that my work was not what she expected.

She mentioned that silly word I have heard before but never knew what they were talking about...arc. She pointed out that my WIP lacked arcs of any kind. No story arc, no character arcs and from what I gathered that last one was a biggie. So living up to my blogs name I reluctantly jumped on the old PC and googled my fingers off.

I have seen the error of my ways.

Wrongly under the impression that what I thought people wanted to read was the "life and times" of my historical characters I just blithely typed my heart out. All of my research was great for a thesis project but even a thesis needs a start a middle and of course a conclusion. So I need to go back to square one and take a long hard look at what I have and see if I can salvage any of it. Or, I could just chuck the whole mess and start from scratch. I do know that a whole bunch of new authors never sell their first book because the first one is the mess they put out when they are learning what NOT to write about.

So here I go again. Starting from scratch again, not because my computer died but because what I put on paper was better used for bird cage liner. *loud bone racking sigh* If you are interested in my journey you can follow me because I am going to give you a blow by blow of my process. If this helps even just one person then maybe what I have done will be worth it.