Oh, man, today was GOOD. To explain it clearly, though, first I have to backtrack a little.
I covered this a little in yesterday’s post, and also in a comment on that post, but I need to explain it here:
I am writing this book backwards. Kind of. I had the idea for years, and I did a lot of work on it, but no actual writing. I played around with it–writing scenes, character bios and histories, pondering the various conflicts and possible story arcs I wanted to explore…but that was it. I kept telling myself I “wasn’t ready” to write this series yet.
And in a way, I was right. I wasn’t ready. I’m probably still not ready, honestly.
But earlier this year, I reached that point of “not ready” where I was “close enough” and it was time to just dive in.
So I did. I started writing. I wrote a first draft (by hand) that was kind of a mess, full of plotholes, inconsistencies, and <<INSERT WITTY DIALOGUE HERE>> moments.
I finished it in July, and I let it sit. And then I let it sit a little too long, because I felt like it was TERRIBLE, and I had no idea what to do with it.
Enter this writing challenge. I started it because I wanted to finish this book–this story that I love so dearly, with characters who mean so much to me. So I dug out my 90 Days To Your Novel book, convinced Christine Song to join in on the madness with me, and started doing the legwork I was supposed to do before I wrote the book.
So basically, I kinda did this book backwards: I wrote the book–the book I wanted to write–first, and now I’m going back through it, doing the research, filling in the blanks, and writing that witty dialogue that sometimes eludes me.
Which is why today, my amazing progress (of which I’m very proud) was to go through my first draft and write an outline based on what I’ve already written. I’m going to use it to see what I want to change and what I want to keep the same. It took a while–I basically reread my first draft today, but it was worth it.
And you know what? My first draft is actually pretty awesome. I mean, it’s definitely not even close to print-ready. It needs a lot of work. But I love it. Reading it again today reminded me how freakin’ awesome this story is going to be when it’s all done.
Oh, it also reminded me how incredibly mean I am. I’ll tell you something–there are parts that need a TON of work before they’ll even be good, but then there are the parts that are pretty much perfect already: Those are the emotional parts. The parts where I put my characters, and readers, through hell. I mean, of course I’m going to edit them, but I was actually pretty proud of myself for how they came out. I am not nice to my poor little characters, that’s for sure.
Summary of the Day: Formed an outline that I can revise and utilize to make my story so much better!
