I've been working on the second draft of my novel and I am finding the process liberating and scary.
It's liberating to go in and rewrite entire interactions. When Sarah was mad at her dad I had the flat text stating "Sarah was mad at her father." With this rewrite, Sarah is screaming at him,"I'll hate you for as long as I live." Hopefully making the book stronger and more real for the reader. God knows, I've heard those words around here... Kids say the funniest things don't they. One minute they hate you the next they're all lovey and kissy because you said there is dessert with supper. Sometimes, no, more like all the time, my head is spinning from all the changes of heart. Oh well, I digress...
And on the other side, this whole editting thing is scary because I've been deleting paragraphs of fluff. Okay not really fluff, but descriptive text that I may not need to move the story forward. I have old drafts on disk and paper just in case I get delete happy.
If you're one of the two people that read this blog when there is nothing on TV, you may have read the entry where I calculated that over the past 6 years I wrote 22 words a day towards the completion of my book. Well, today in one quick mouse stroke I deleted 3 weeks worth of words. It's staggering... Will I have any text left at the end of this process?
And to think I waited 2 months to start this rewrite so I wouldn't be so emotionally attached to each and every word. Good thing, huh.
3 comments:
Woo-hoo! You go girl! This is great...keep at it. Writing is all about rewriting, as you and I both know!
I think you're doing exactly what you need to do. It's not easy.Keep up the great work!!!!
I HATE editing myself. Even worse, I'm not very good at editing myself. I'm not very good at putting myself into the reader's shoes.
mybackyard
Check out this book: How to Publish Your Children's Book by Liza N. Burby (Garden City, NY: SquareOne Writers Guides, 2004).
It's in the local library system under call number:
808.02
BURBY
2004
mby
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