I'm up to my elbows right now in rewrites. I'm on the home stretch of this book. I can see the light, smell the finish line, all that.
But I have a love/hate relationship with rewrites. It's the place where the book takes solid form, all the parts come together. It gets prettier. You know. But it's also the place where my weaknesses slap me on the forehead. "Doh!" And the idea and passages -- you know the ones -- which seemed so clever the first or second time through now seem stupid and must be slashed. It's also the place where errors like timeline mistakes rear their ugly heads.
Plus I'm ploddingly slow at this part. And while life has a penchant for getting in the way, it seems to doubly gets in the way during the revision process. The baby is created, birthed, now who wants to painstakingly force it to grow?
Who can relate with me? How many of you are in the revisions? How many rewrites do you generally do per book? What do you love/hate about this process?
13 comments:
Okay. I'll go first.
I can relate with ya sista friend. Oh yeah. I'm struggling with rewrites myself. Ha!
This is my third (and I hope) final pass through this book.
I'm discovering (duh, my CPs pointed this out awhile ago) too much backstory in the first chapter. I knew there was too much backstory, so I took a bunch out, but when I read through that first part of the book, it clipped along then bogged down. Boring. I had to cut almost two full pages of really clever writing yesterday. It reads better now, and my wounds are healing. Thanks for asking. HA!
I might be operating on a bit of fear here too. I want to start sending a partial of this story out to editors and agents, but I sent my first book before it was ready. I don't want to make the same mistake again....
I HATE rewrites! LOL I want the book to be done when I type that last line. I don't want to go back through and cut and fix. Hence my sending out stuff that isn't ready! LOL
I was revising/writing the spirit book and got frustrated and put it to the side. I'll give it another go when I get the current WIP first draft and hopefully the only draft done. I'm finding from all the editing I do with WRP, I'm coming out with a much cleaner manuscript and things seem to be getting thought out in my head before I put them on paper. That is until I do dialog and my characters say something I never thought of! LOL
But then I hate revisions, so maybe this is my subconscious making sure I don't have to do so much with this book when it's done!
I'm sure once that book is done, it will blow an editor away! I only read the beginning and I can't wait to read the rest and see what you did with the story!
Thanks for your vote of cofidence on my WIP, Paty!
I hear you on hating rewrites. That's the way I feel this week.
You'll get the Spirit book. It's a fun story. You're getting close...
Danita, ALice here---
I feel like a broken record.
I will say that I have not minded rewrites in the past for the very reasons you mentioned. The tightening of the story, the making sense of things, the slicing and dicing that makes things read smoothly. I don't know about you, but I pretty much know where every rough patch of writing exists in this current book. I also know there are things that don't make sense and it occurred to me in the middle of the night that I had killed off BOTH the suspicious guys leaving me no one to pin things on. One needs to come back to life or another needs to be inserted.
Time is my enemy now. As I just got the copy edits for the last book and they want them next week, I am going to be rewriting that while I write this. Yikes. But when I look at the inconsistencies, etc... in the first book and realize how hard it's going to be to change them on paper, I wish I'd caught them before it went. And if I can learn from that experience before sending in this book, there will be fewer to work on three months down the line. So, I am motivated to improve.
Sorry for the ramble, you hit me where I live...
Good luck to you and Paty,
Alice
I like rewrites--at least I have something to work with. It's the drafting process that gives me major headaches. I dislike that rewrites can seem endless--when all you want to do is polish and instead you have subplots crying out for medical attention, but I like forcing myself to work through it. Drafting--drafting needs dynamite right now. I actually WISH I were in editing--even editing hell right now.
Ah, Wavy, I'll write for you and you do rewrites for me! LOL
I love the first time through and the surge of energy to get the story on paper! I hate the rewriting making it perfect and delving into the deeper emotions and plots.
I'm with Wavy. But then I'm an ed-as-I-go writer, so the first draft is also the second, third and fourth draft all rolled into one. ;)
Good luck with the revisions, Danita. I know you'll get to that end point very soon.
Alice,
You poor dear. Double rewrite HELL. Hang in there. One word at a time. You'll get it. Easy for me to say, I know, but I have full confidence in you and you're incredible abilities.
Wavy,
Would it give your spirit a boost to edit something that's already drafted, or is that stuff pretty polished to perfection?
Just a thought.
Otherwise, Paty, Alice or I would probably be happy to throw some rewrite crap your way. Ha!
Just let the words flow, baby. Let 'em flow. If you like the revision process, you have no worries if what you're writing has to be rewritten, right?
Right.
Now go to that keyboard, girl, and write like the wind is at your back.
Eli,
I envy you that write/rewrite as you go. I've tried that but I tend to get bogged down in one spot and make no forward motion.
Everyone has to do it their own way, I guess.
Thanks for the good luck wishes.
I could start rewriting the 400+ pages that I've got, but I need to write that ending--the editing is my reward. Thanks for all the support though. I'm going to start by cleaning up this hell hole of an office (seriously, way worse than editing OR drafting hell)---fresh start, then get back on track here. I'm tackling my block from multiple angles--less teaching next term, more work on the head etc. Thanks everyone! IT really means a lot that you are all so supportive.
Wavy--For what it's worth--Sometims I don't write the ending before I start the rewrites. Sometimes, I need the momentum of all that weight behind me to push me to the final words. So, perhaps, that would work for you sometime.
Alice
Wavy,
Although I write the ending before I start serious rewrites, I often leave holes here and there in the middle of the manuscript.
In my WIP, I have a big hole right in the center. It's an important scene, and I wasn't sure how it would all work with everything else. During the first couple rewrites I sort of skipped over that sketchy scene and made notes in a notebook about what needed to happen to make that pivitol scene work.
So on this third rewrite I'll just write my way right through that scene like I know what I'm doing, because, finally, I think I do!
You'll get it.
Now get crackin'!
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