Rewrite Back Where We Started From

Ramped up the writing again after attending the con. It made a nice palette cleanser. After the first day of the con on Friday, I didn’t get any more editing done until Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s still a blur. The weather went from 60s the first day to teens and twenties for the next few. While looking for parking, I got lost for two hours one day. I took a wrong turn and wound up on a long highway road with no exits or turnarounds. This place is crazy.

I still had fun. I heard tales of Mikki Kendall’s misspent youth then caught a movie or two in the video room. And attended, one of my favorite thing to do at cons: writing panels. I came away with some nice info and more books to put on the to be read pile. I also bought my friend a nice birthday meal.

Book 1 – Justicar Jhee and the Cursed Abbey

A small, technical change helped cut through my resistance to the rewrites. Retype the whole story into new documents. By deciding section by section or even sentence by sentence what I wanted to redo, decision fatigue set in. Retyping everything eliminated this. This is not a complete rewrite in the sense of going back to reexamine the story on a conceptual level. The synopsis ironed out some structural problems which required adding text or rewriting existing components. I’m copying the story mostly intact except for those.

I read an editing suggestion recently which advised rewriting the first draft by typing it over anew. And it just clicked. I did this when my earliest drafts were handwritten and, at the risk of dating myself, when I wrote in DOS apps. Cut-and-pasting between documents and file compatibility were a joke. I made minor fixes transferring work from one format to another. I rethought elements. With the ease of cut and paste, it became so easy to fixate on what you’d already written. When I must type it all in again, I’m more selective about what I carry over. I reevaluate and ditch dead weight rather than rearrange it.

Such a simple subtle thing. My editing time has clear and definite actions to perform. Retype the next bit of story. Incorporate a missing bit identified by the synopsis. I no longer have that limbo where I am stuck in-between blank page syndrome and the existing words getting in the way. It’s slower than speed drafting, but worth it. I found integrating snippets easier, since I have to rewrite the sentence or scene anyway.

Excerpt:

Since it was in her district, she always delayed it until later. Later had arrived.

Book 2 – Justicar Jhee and the Gray Galleon

Nope. Nope. Too much going on to even think about this guy.

Random Detail:

“Driftwood” is a derogatory term for anyone who washes up on a foreign isle.

Book 3 – “The Missing MacGuffin”

I’m still deciding. Come back to me.

Have a lovely day!