Writing-wise, I have a lot to occupy my mind. COLLAPSE is deeply mired in beta reading, and with the WIP It blogfest I should be getting even more. So while I’m waiting to collect all of that, I decided, what the hell, it’s time for a new project. Well, a new old project.
My 2010 book was called A SAFE PLACE IN HELL. The name is…a work in progress? Anyway, I really liked the concept, but as time went on had doubts about my execution of it. Part of this was inexperience…okay, all of it was inexperience. I’ve heard that you need to do something for 10,000 hours before it can truly be mastered, and I was at about 8K there. Not bad, but not there yet.
So I decided that if I found the time, I would rewrite it basically from scratch. And I found the time. I’ve only got about ten thousand words down, but I have a plan for what’s going to happen and I think it’s going to come out as good as a first draft can come out. Same plot, same characters but evolved so it’s, I hope, a lot better. You’ll know that it’s good if in about a year I’m going on another beta reader hunt.
I know. I’m ending with questions, the written cat-picture (read: easy way out) of blogger tools, but I’d like to see what you, my fabulacious friends, have to say about rewrites. Have you done them? Have you wanted to? When do you think they’re warranted and when does an idea need to fade away?
Also? Disappointed that “fabulacious” isn’t in Word’s dictionary. They have frigging ginormous, but fabulacious is where they draw the line.
Actually, it takes about 50,000 hours of doing something to become a master at it. There was an interesting study done not too long ago dealing with chess masters and sports and music and how much practice one needs to do and all of that.
ReplyDeletePerhaps when you're next in blogging-mode, you should write and store some blog posts for future writing-modes.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about rewriting. At the moment I'm rewriting the first novel I ever wrote. I figured out what its problem was a few months back, and ever since I've been tinkering with it. Just recently, I cut the last half and have been rewriting the ending ever since.
It's so much better now.
Muses are odd creature, aren't they?
ReplyDeleteI haven't been writing long enough to do a real re-write, but one is looming in my future - or, at least, a major edit, anyway. LOL
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'll be back in cyber circulation soon. ;)
Fabulicious is a word!
ReplyDeleteNow.
I haven't tried to rewrite old stuff... but a fair amount of modifications here and there on my own MS. A Safe Place In Hell sounds like a good title... a bit similar to a title I'll use down the line, A Cold Day In Hell.