Sunday, November 16, 2008

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.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you drived right in and are on a roll. Keep at it .. it will be well worth the effort.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! You're doing really well. Almost there, huh? Go Mighty Mum!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can't wait to read the final version.

    Love,
    Mum

    ReplyDelete
  4. It came to you while cooking pork chops? Guess what? I was 9 months pregnant with my daughter and my waters broke when I was cooking pork chops too.

    Hope you "give birth" to something equally beautiful.

    ReplyDelete