Write While Understanding This…

You WILL have to go back to page one, word one, and rewrite.

I’m happy that I’ve finally begun to train myself to write with this mindset. After this rewrite can I only claim to have a solid first draft.

But this rewrite is intense. I’m correcting awkward sentences, checking my idioms and proofing as much as possible (usually while editing we’re more apt to create more proofing errors, like this lovely one for instance “a the…,” which occurs when we delete a few words but forget to delete the “a”).  However, most importantly I’m tightening my plot, which is lot easier because I’ve already gotten past my major plot points, rising action, climax and falling action. Usually, I go back and start the first rewrite before I finish writing the denouement. And so now, I’m able to write it!

But I’m not done yet.

After the first draft, I start a serious line by line edit/proof, taking my emotions out of it. My fingers are crossed that I don’t annoy myself at this juncture. Like I’m reading and I’m saying, “What in the world am I trying to say? What are YOU TRYING TO SAY???” If I’m lucky I’ll  get caught up in the story–still! This is why I give it another read. I want the story to flow. The good thing is I’m my own worst critic. I don’t know why–or maybe I do… It’ll probably take Doctor Phil to drag it out of me :-), but if I feel I’m not entertaining myself, then I’d seriously start from scratch. If I feel like I’m confusing myself, then I start to scrapping things. But the good thing is I don’t even get to the first full draft before I get to this point.

However, I’m happy to announce that Quenched, book three of the Parched series has passed through my strict filtering process.

And I’m loving the story…. sighhh… knock on wood.

It was not easy this time around either. I had to work on the relationship between Clarity and Baron, while weaving five more characters into the main plot and make them feel authentic to ME first, and then hopefully to the readers. And then, personally, I don’t like to read and be bored–so I keep my characters active and moving towards a plot point (which is a purpose), to stave off boredom.

So… basically I now write with the understanding that it’s never done until I’m able to please myself–and that’s pretty hard to do!

Now time to get back to it.

Notice it’s 3:53PM and not 3:53AM????

I think it’s because it’s the first day of Fall… sighhh… so glad the Summer is over.