Bane of Your Resistance

Good news: My novel revision is humming along. I’m in the zone.

I had hoped to finish the revision sooner, but I’m changing far more than I first envisioned. When I finish adding scenes for my new POV character Kat and making the changes in existing scenes to accommodate those new scenes and plot twists, at least half the novel will be completely new.

I’m not so much revising now as using the characters, a few scenes and bits of scenes from the old novel to create a new, tighter, hopefully more grab-readers-by-the-throat-and-not-let-them-go novel.

Bad news: The revision/recreation process hasn’t triggered big struggles that led to interesting insights lately. (Other than encountering the beast below while at AWP, which I wrote about in a previous post.) The struggles now are more everyday, “how do I show…” and “what happens if…” puzzles I enjoy solving.

No news: This is why it’s been so long since I posted a New Book Update. It occurs to me that you might be encouraged and happy to know there are long stretches of working on a big writing project when “all is calm, all is bright.” Okay, most is calm, most is bright.

I show up every day I commit to. Most days, I have fun playing with my novel. Nearly every day, I wish I had more time, especially the days when I fart around with resistance for 20 minutes or so before I start. But I always have at least my 15 Magic Minutes.

News news: I signed up for the Loft’s Pitch Conference November 13-14, where I’ll get the opportunity to pitch my novel to two agents. I gave myself a firm target date: complete the revision no later than November 6.

I filled in dates from November 6 backwards to June 12 on my list of chapters. It’s an ambitious schedule – write or rewrite one to two chapters a week – but as Paul Simon says “The cross is in the ball park.”

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play in the ballpark.