Monday night I hit a wall (figuratively speaking). Trudging along in my Pass 2 for my YA Contemporary, I got spooked by the fact that my manuscript was changing so much. I'd only revised about 12K of it, but change--when it happens all too fast--can be scary which left me as a perfect vessel for doubt to creep into. #writingwoes
What scared me the most was the idea of this story straying so far from my initial vision when I'd set out to write it. It made me question whether I was doing the right thing. Was the heart of the book the same? Or was it something else entirely? Give two writers the same writing prompt, you'll end up with two different responses. It kind of feels like that. With each pass, I was creating a different response, so the question I asked myself was whether or not it was getting better.
After freaking out a bit, I tried to zoom out to the big picture of what I was trying to accomplish. To do that, I looked at my writing calendar to see how this MS had grown. Was the story growing upright and developing branches? Or was it a tree getting blown over by the wind?
I'd drafted this MS sporadically in May, September, and October.
I revised draft 2 as a huge rewrite from October through November.
Did two read-throughs before embarking on draft 3 in November & December.
Took 3 weeks to input my write-ins and make my changes during my first pass from the end of December to mid-January.
Now, I'm a week into my second pass. All the while, wondering if this story will kill me or if I'm really that stubborn that I need to finish it.
Comparing my current draft to what I'd written in May, I can see the growth, but it's still not where I want it to be. This tree/story still has a lot of growing to do, and I'm running out of patience.
I'm really starting to miss fantasy right about now.
*goes back to revising*
