Yes, 4.0. Writing is rewriting, people. Which brings me to today's topic. Rewriting can be a lot of things, but what it usually ends up being is tedious, because whatever problem there is with something you've written is often so subtle and so small, it requires scrutinizing the work over and over and fuckin' OVER again, until it starts to lose its meaning like a word you've said out loud too many times in the same minute.
This is one of the reasons I dread rewrites. Yes, it's because I hate killing my darlings (if I didn't, they wouldn't be very darling), but it's more than that. I have this fear that I'm going to get so bored by reading the same thing over and over that I'll start to gloss over it and miss what it is I need to fix or I'll let myself slide because I'm not really committing to the task at hand... since I just want it to be over. I eventually come back and do things right, but there usually comes a point where I just have to step back and give it some time. There is, of course, a flipside to this, and that's reviewing passages that simply never go stale no matter how many times I read them. When you read something you've written and enjoy it so much it feels like someone else wrote it, that shit is gold. When you can make yourself laugh with a one-liner or wince with a catty burn every time you read it, it doesn't get any better than that, folks.
Well, after the stuff I discussed two posts ago, the knowledge that I had to sort of breakdown the first semester and rearrange some things, I looked at the task ahead of me and found it rather daunting. It meant rewriting some early chapters, and the idea of revisiting that material, of having to start the story again was absolutely dreadful, because nothing is harder than beginnings. A lot of people say that endings are the hardest, but they never are for me. If you know what your story is really about, the ending is just a matter of two things, logic and patience: logic to help you realize what would be the most natural and fulfilling conclusion to everything that's come before it, and patience for that idea to come to you, because it isn't always immediately obvious.
No, I have trouble with beginnings, because by the ending, you've got your audience. Beginnings are where you not only have to hook that audience, but set your stage and put your story in motion, and they are thus very delicate creatures. How much exposition do you drop in? How much action? How much dialogue? Where is the starting point? What is prologue and should be referred to in flashback? It's a balancing act, and going back to that beginning and rewriting it, especially since certain points of view were changing due to chapter rearrangement, was going to be a massive job.
And it was.
But after I got out of those woods (it only took a week and a half, to my surprise), I found myself staring down the barrel of the rest of the semester. It was late, I was tired, and I knew it was not the time to go over dialogue or action. My brain just wasn't tuned up nearly enough to handle that. But a puzzle? A puzzle I could do, so I started fiddling with the continuity, figuring out what sequence the events had to come in, really getting down to the pacing and emotional rhythm of the content, and...
Holy... fucking... shit.
Somewhere around 5:15 AM, I was done. I knew there were a few chapters (mostly Patrick stuff, as his story, both the main mystery and his character arc, were getting altered the most) that I'd have to just sort of drop in as I went along. All in all, I think it'll add about three chapters to my current outline of Fall Semester, but for the most part, I had it. And it looked good. It looked tight. It put all the events into a fresh new context and it really feels like they were initially jumbled out of the right sequence and this version is the way things were supposed to be all along. I practically slapped myself in the head, thinking, how could I have not seen this before? How did I not have it like this from the beginning?! But that's rewriting. And the most amazing thing?
These thirty or so chapters ahead of me... I'm not dreading rewriting them. I'm not intimidated, I'm not reluctant, I'm not resigned to the task, and I'm not pissed that this is yet another setback from finishing my first complete draft. You know what I am?
I'm excited. Honestly, seriously, and indescribably excited. About rewriting. I simply cannot wait to get to work on these rewrites, and that is something I never in a million years thought I would say.
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