Sorry I've been away from the blog. I've been busy with Murder by the Acre. This weekend I finally made the horrible decision to discard almost all of the old material as written. That means I have to write about 40,000 words between now and March 30. I kinda feel sick about it. The old material will function as background and plot, but I don't think I will be able to fit in more than a couple thousand words.This is terribly depressing, but it had to be done. As I wrote the new material, I kept pushing the old material further away. I think I've known for a while that it wouldn't work, but I kept hoping that somehow I could plug it in and make it work. Well, it won't. Not and be a book I could be proud of. Not and be better than Murder by Dewey Decimal, which is what I'm angling for.
I wrote Murder by Dewey Decimal almost 20 years ago. The book flowed out of me in a one long stream of plot and characters. When I updated it last year, it require almost no rewriting beyond some obvious errors and some rearranging to enhance the flow of the plot. MBTA was written soon after MBDD, but with MBTA, it was the first book that I had attempted to outline and plot. I didn't do such a good job with it. I spent pages of dialogue and exposition on Bernard and Lisa's relationship. I meandered around Ryton, describing the town and its inhabitants. The murders were like an afterthought instead of being front and center, and having two murderers muddied the plot until even I had trouble figuring out who did what and to who.
Well, there it is. I have to rewrite MBTA. I'm going to write 40,000 words before March 30. That will be hard, but doable. The new material is "in the flow," and it's smarter, clearer, funnier, and sharper than the old. The old material has given me a firm background on which to base the book. So while I regret this -- to the point of feeling sick -- it's the best decision. And I can do it. NaNoWriMo taught me that.
Anyway, that's what's going on with me. What's happening with you?
7 comments:
Great decision! It is never easy to throw out things that have meaning but You do write better now having followed you for ages :)I can't wait for more!
Roen
Thanks for the support, Roen.
So why do you have to do it by March, specifically? Not that I want to wait longer than I have to, but it's a self-imposed deadline is it not? It wouldn't be so depressing if you gave yourself some more time.
FF, because the book has to be finished and published form by the end of June if I want it to make Amazon and B&N by the middle of November. I plan on MBTA to go to the first readers in April. Then I'll have all of May and to the middle of June to edit and polish. It's going to be close.
And it's depressing not because of the deadline. It's losing all those words. It feels like wasted time, even though I will be able to use most of of it as background and source material.
I can certainly understand the difficulty. It's like your throwing out a piece of you. Your creation etc.. I find that with my photos. Do I really need to save a picture of some funky looking bush? Am I ever going to stock it for resale, most likely not, but I have a hard time hitting that delete button. For one reason or another I found it necessary to take that picture at that time and it meant something then. Even though, my thought process would have been completely different now.
Anywho, I admire your resilience.
Sounds like you made the wise decision. And why do you think you're losing all those good words? It sounds like without those words, you wouldn't have as strong an understanding of either Ryton or Bernard and Lisa. Without that, you wouldn't be "in the flow" now.
It's all good, Tech. And, absolutely, you can do 40k between now and the end of March.
Keep up the good work.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
- Samuel Johnson
In otherwords, "Get it right or it's crap."
- Adam Huckeby
You're a good writer man - trust your instinct and press on!
I hope you're feeling better. Had this quote to post as a comment on this post, but didn't get around to doing it as quickly as I'd like. Probably doesn't mean much to you right now, but you'll recover and be back to pounding away on the keyboard again soon. I remember a few years ago when I had the flu...it took me 4 weeks to get back to normal...and during the first week, I literally didn't care if I died or not. Hopefully you're past the worst of it now! Take care of yourself!
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