Man, today was awwwwssoommmeee.
I’m in on my rewrite. It has begun, and it is GOOD. For now. I’m sure I’ll hate it in a weeks’ time, but this is really the major win: I knew today instantly that this rewrite was worth the time. It’s going to take me a bit to finish, of that I have no doubt.
If my recent track-record is any indication, it’s going to take me about two months. I’m hoping to finish in four weeks, cut that time in half. I *can* do it, but will I? Who knows. And, at the end of the day, who cares? Again: I know after today that this is worth it.
The story is just so much more engaging for me. And if *I* am engaged, it means the readers will be, too. What I had before was…fine. It was imaginative and it was different, and it definitely took my characters “places”…but I could just not get fully into it. There was a disconnect, and it was a disconnect that I know now was fixable.
In a nutshell, my space adventure needed more space.
So, here we are. Rewriting 60,000 words. A solid full novel for normal people. Uuuughhhh. Why did I have to write so many words for my first book, again? Stupid.
I have faith again that this second book…or, really these next TWO books…will live up to the first. Finally.
I was talking with Liz over dinner tonight–we went to dinner! Surprise date I got an eVite for this morning in my email! So romantical:)–a few months ago at the beginning of this year, I wouldn’t quite say that I was doubting that I could do this whole writing thing. It never got quite that dire. But I *was* definitely doubting this book/these books.
I felt out of my depth. Overwhelmed. Unable to write with efficiency because I didn’t know what I was writing. I could just feel the disconnect.
The route out of that was starting with my anxiety. I had SO MUCH anxiety sitting down to write. It was paralyzing. That’s rare these days. Sitting down to write is still hard; it still feels like work. But, the overwhelming anxiety is not a part of my everyday any more. And it was because I tackled that first.
I read about how meditation and relaxation techniques are super simple, and very, very effective for most people. They were/are effective for me. Almost every writing day now, I sit down and relax/meditate for about 20 minutes before starting my writing. It helps me focus, and dump all the anxious thoughts rattling around in my brain out. And then, once I’m a little more “empty” and focused, I can actually type away at my keyboard and get really quality amounts of work done.
So…that’s my task for the next couple months. To bang out some quality work and see if I can’t release these two books before the end of the year. I definitely had bigger plans than that, I wanted to release like five or six books this year, BUT…it is still twice as many books I released last year, and that is no slouch of an improvement. 2019 will be even better.
I know some of these other indie writers out there can just bang their books out, do a quick pass, and then send it along. I can’t. I’m not there yet. In some of those indie cases, I have a stricter sense of what makes a quality story worth reading (thought definitely not all cases, mind you! There are so, soooo many indie writers who are lightyears ahead of my skills, let’s be clear). In other cases, those fast indie writers are just better at their craft than I am, and they can write a nearly-perfect story in one-and-a-half drafts. I look forward to those days. Let me tell you. And that IS the goal, make no mistake about it.
So, that was the first half of my day: writing the first chapter of this rewrite, and getting a page or two into the second chapter. It was about 2,700 words in total. A very respectable total.
Then, I went and did some education time with Mark Dawson’s video courses, and I read some of The Left Hand of Darkness which is already so freaking good. And THEN it was time to go to my mystery surprise Panda date.
We went to Here’s Looking At You, which is this award-winning spot in K-Town that’s just so freaking good. It’d been a couple weeks since we went out together, if not a month or so, and it was wonderful. Just wonderful. Thanks to you, bear, for having the idea. I love you so much! 🙂
I guess I had a lot to say tonight! That’s all for now. More tomorrow, an off day. Some writing, some resting, and some hanging out with Dayna and Antoine before they leave for Arizona.
Good night!