Under Way

The new Prologue is done, and the new Chapter One is almost complete.

Part of me absolutely HATES having to rewrite the whole damned story.

But the other half kind of loves doing it, because this time all I know everything. The beginning, the middle, the end. And in particular the characters. I now know who they all ARE. In the first draft they're kind of there, but there images are a bit sketchy. And I found myself continually discovering new things about all of them as I went along. Almost as if I was the reader/audience. Not the writer who was already inside their heads.

It was fun to watch them grow, the first time, and to be surprised when they showed me something new about themselves that I had not thought of. In short, when they really started to breathe and become full characters.

In truth it was kind of hard to let them and their story go when I finished the first draft.

I also felt like I hadn't really honoured their story in a way.

And they kept bugging me about it. "Rewrite our story, doofus! You owe it to us! You dredged us up out of nowhere so you'd better fix it up so that we make sense."

Brutal. Honestly.

I think the funnest thing will be rewriting the beginning. And it is. But not for the reasons I first thought. Last time, it was the plot that I knew well, but not the characters. So this time, even though the beginnins is nearly the same, the plot is now enriched by the depth of the characters.

And likewise, now, when I get a bit further along, I will be able to fix up the bits of the plot (the middle) so that it matches the strength of the characters, that I'd found for them by that point.

Anyway, it's all fascinating.

And I'm reaffirming my wriing likes and dislikes. A thousand words is really all I can take a sitting. Even with a break. I just find my writing starts to become forced and then I start to get caught up trying to get the flow back instead of moving ahead with the story.

Nope. 1000 wds is it for me at a sitting.

And I can only listen to classical music while I write. Anything else is too disctracting. (Cause I usually want to sing along!)

There is some great classical music out there.

Until next time.

J.