Manuscript Update

Hello all! It’s been a while. These past several months have been an kaleidoscope of working, sickness, holidays, recovery, and writing. I am not nearly as far as I want to be for the manuscript revision/rewrite (see last blog post), but I’ve made great progress and I’m equal parts fascinated and terrified on how this story is reforming. It’s different, yet somehow more true to the original story, but really different.

And wow, that was a total lie when I said I’d be blogging more the end of 2018. Guess I fibbed that in my last post! To be honest, I rather holed up in my brain the past couple months. Not just over this project, but also due to a few health issues that arose and am now solving. Then there was the holidays… which is always way busier and less downtime than you think.

THAT BEING SAID – immediate family, partner, and I disappeared to the beach over New Years for several days. There was no cell phone service, and limited Wi-Fi — disconnecting from the world was just what the doctor ordered. I forget sometimes how much social media weighs on the brain. I’ve let it become a constant barrage of information, my go-to task when I’m not doing something, and I think it’s made my mind tired. I’m not sure exactly how to fix that problem as a writer needs to have an active social media presence — but alas.

Anyway, I’m getting off track — let’s get back to writing.

This rewrite is much darker and deeper than the manuscript before. Looking at it now, the original manuscript almost seems… shallow, in parts. Not all of that was bad, and some of it inevitable considering my writing skill at the time. But I am greatly enjoying the depth and complexity that is forming through this revision, even as I worry that it’s getting a little too heavy.

It’s equal parts weird — because this is not technically a first draft. But also incredible — because I’m finding ways to fall back in love with this story by re-imagining areas that had started to feel stale. I guess that’s why they call it a ‘revision.’

(Ha. Re-vision. I don’t think I’d thought about how accurate that word is in this moment. I am, in a lot of senses, adjusting my vision of this story. Anyway moving on — )

I’m going to write a post soon about the actual process of this rewrite, as I’ve discovered a few things I think might be interesting to y’all (particularly, writing using Google Docs, and on my phone!? I never thought I would say I’d done that). It’s coming along much slower than I would have liked (surprise, surprise), and I will definitely need to do a heavy edit once this manuscript is put back together. I’m aiming to have the big parts done by the end of January, heavy edits by February, and fine-tuning by the end of March. Which means it’ll actually be done sometime in May, but let’s not talk about that.

Then! BETA READING, MY FRIENDS!

This is something I think I lacked for the first time around with this manuscript. I had a few readers and input, but I didn’t have the sample size or input that I really should have — and needed. I’m really looking forward to getting critiques (as much as the idea of criticism makes me want to crawl into a hole) especially from from fellow writing peers and friends.

Buuut I’ve got to get this manuscript done first.

On that note, I should head back to the writing trenches. I’ve managed to do a little bit every day, and though the incremental progress is driving me crazy, it is very satisfying to see it slowly-but-surely coming together.

That’s the update, folks. Tune in soon, where I’ll talk about some interesting writing process tricks and how that’s fitting into this big ol’ messy manuscript revision.