Did you hear that?  It’s the sound of my long-stalled rewrite getting unstuck.

I have this issue with beginnings.  In the first chapter, I’m trying so hard to establish everything that I have to write it three or four (or seven or ten) times over before I get it right.

In the second chapter, I tend to stall out and lose tension.  I can tell this is boring because the words flow like dried ketchup, and are about as attractive.  Even I am bored.  There’s too much sitting around, too much thinking, not enough character interaction.  I’m well aware that locking my character in a closet by herself for hours is not interesting.  But I haven’t figured out what else to do, so I just keep writing that closet.

In fact, I have spent several weeks not writing that closet.

 But today I found what else to do besides the closet.    That means this rewrite might actually get done sometime this century.    If I can get through chapter three, and the inevitable awkward transition from story setup to full-swing action, which invariably needs to be cut to just swing all the way through.

By chapter four, we’ll be sailing smooth.

Posted on April 27th, 2010 under Uncategorized. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.