Rewrite
A few weeks ago, I began quietly working on a rewrite to Novella. I hadn't worked on the story seriously since November of last year, and in that time I had many new ideas. Typically it takes me a long time to come up with new ideas for a story, which is partly why it has taken me years to write one at all. Perhaps that would be different if I had been writing full time, but I'd rather be well paid IT guru who writes on the side than a starving young writer.
The impetus for this rewrite was not mine alone. It was actually the suggestion of a fellow writer who's work I highly respect. Her suggestion was that I should wipe the slate clean, and start over with a blank piece of paper. She also suggested that I stop forcing the characters to do something, but instead "ask" them for what they would do. I was resistant to the idea at first. The Draft 3 outline had reached over 40 pages in length. To simply abandon it all and start over seemed a terrible waste of effort. As a result, I didn't seriously concider the idea for months.
Recently, however, I decided that it would be worth a try. I certainly wasn't getting anywhere as I was, and the new ideas I was generating by "interviewing" the characters would be easier to write if I were to start with a clean slate. Furthermore, I wouldn't be throwing out the old outlines. Draft 3, if nothing else, was a good way to generate new ideas. Many of the subplots from Draft 3 would carry over. What I'm changing is the framework on which to hang these ideas. I didn't move forward with this until I found myself in a hotel room last week.
On a whim, I decided to bring my paper journal on the trip. This was a first in my short career as a software consultant. I usually leave it home because I prefer to travel as light as possible. It has also been the trend of the last few years for me to write in my online journals rather than my paper journal. Lately, however, that tend has been changing. Packing it along with the rest of my belongings turned out to be a good choice. Monday night I found myself writing an entry expressing how I felt I didn't know the story anymore. The very next paragraph I began telling the story that I supposedly didn't know, and continued to do so for 11 handwritten pages in the tiny 4"x6" journal.
I purposefully stopped early that evening. I didn't want to push myself too far. Furthermore, leaving it in such an unfinished state would keep my zeal fresh until the next evening. When that evening came, I wrote 7 pages. The two entries combined total five-eighths of the story. The beginning is still hazy, and I did not get to writing the end. Of course, I have had the ending for years now -- it was the first thing I had! I was hoping to write that the very next evening, but an unfortunate incident at work left me a shambles for the next week.
Last Wednesday I finally had pulled myself together enough to return to writing. I opened my word processor and began to transcribe what I had written in my paper journal expanding it as I went along. When I finished transcribe it all, I had a total of 3 single spaced 8"x11" pages. To my astonishment, the three pages were lacking subplots from Draft 3 I had hoped to keep. There was obviously much, much more story here than I ever expected. Again, this only covered five-eighths of the story. The very beginning was missing as was the last quarter of the story. Nevertheless, that's a lot more than I ever had before.
I'm very happy with how the rewrite is progressing. The story feels much more solid and true-to-life than it ever has before. The transcription (or "prewriting" as I sometimes call it) is to serve as a starting point for a new outline. I have only shared it with one of my friends at this moment. I am hoping to at least get to the end before I release it among my friends. I would like to continue to expand it including old subplots from the previous draft before giving it the more rigid organization of an outline. Only when I have the outline will I release it here on the website.
