Blogging My Novel: Leaping into Draft 7

In case no one noticed, I fell off the blog wagon last week. I spent all day Monday and half the day Tuesday re-reading my novel and reviewing all the criticism it's received in its current state. I figure I read the bloody thing six times in two days--enough to challenge anyone's resolve. Tuesday afternoon I boiled my intended revisions down to seven tidy bullet points and sent them off to my 'interested-but-not-yet-representing-me' agent. That night I slept like the dead. The process of revision had begun.

What makes me so anxious about this draft is that what Draft 6 lacked can't be fixed with a few lines of funny dialogue or the odd omitted detail. Increasing a manuscript's length by 50% requires a major plot twist. It's like taking a two act play and squeezing in a third halfway between intermission and the grand finale. It's enough to make my brain cramp just thinking about it.

I am happy to report that sitting down to work is less painful than the anticipation of it. In only four partial days I've already boosted my word count by over 10%. More importantly, though, I think I've found the plot twist it needs. It came to me Friday night while cooking pork chops, go figure. I don't have all the details yet--doh, there goes that brain cramp again--but a year ago at this time I didn't have a novel.

Well, that's just about enough writing for one day. Always a sucker for public ridicule, I'll be posting a tally of my progress in the sidebar, so be sure to check in.