Now that I've pretended I care about the normal, ordinary things going on in my life...let's get to the important stuff.

(Even before you read, those of you in e-mail communication with me should take a moment to be grateful. If not for the invention of the blog, you'd have received this in your in-box and even now you'd be feeling obligated to think of some kind of response. Hooray for the blog! No response required!)

(Also? A holiday gift from me to you...this is a third as long the first draft was. I'm becoming the queen of editing!)

(Well, not so much editing. Most of the stuff I took out will appear in another blog post. But no one's obligated to read any of it...that's what I keep reminding myself.)

Okay...wait for it...here it comes....

Yes! There was a marathon, 12-hour rewriting session on the SEN yesterday, how did you guess? Basically, I did nothing all day yesterday but make a couple of pots of soup and fight this pig of a story.

Starting on Saturday evening, I wrote out a list of every scene in the story. After that, I spent hours with my little hammer and chisel, beating the necessary shape onto those scenes. Then I took a deep breath, cursed for a few minutes, picked up the new outline, and started rewriting.

The hours passed...I started paper-clipping pages together with a "write this later" note, then moving on for a couple of pages, before sheer stubbornness forced me to go back and do all of the rewrites as I went. (If I don't care enough to write it now, will I ever care enough to write it, that's what I asked myself.)

I made it to page 101 before I collapsed, at 8:15 last night, leaving a mere 54 pages to go.

I've written so many new bits, re-written so many old bits, and moved so many other bits from one place to another that I don't actually know what the story itself looks like at the moment.

Also, I deleted. Words, sentences, and entire scenes.

Really, I can't remember when I've had this much fun.*

I haven't keyed any of the new stuff in yet; I decided to stop pretending that transcription was "writing" and do some actual writing first. After I get the last 54 pages rewritten, I'll key it all in, print it out (Using my superfast new laser printer. It's been a very merry holiday season for me already and I haven't gotten a gift from anyone but myself yet.) , and then (with fear and trembling) sit down to read the result.

Happily, the scheme of only writing every couple of days continues to be effective. I'm already seeing that I keep a better distance from the text and that I come to it fresher if I stay away from it on alternate days.

I mean, I'd never have thought of this current approach to the necessary rewrites if I hadn't ignored the story entirely for five straight days.

The bad news? I still haven't managed to capture characterization.

Still...who knows what inspiration might strike during the next round of rewrites?

The Adventure Continues....

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*It's a shame it's not a better story, you know? I'm putting a significant amount of effort into turning a pig's ear into a more attractive pig's ear. But maybe that's how it has to be. If I'd loved this story, I'd probably never have been able to hack it up this way. This way, I'm learning what editing is all about...and acquiring, one hopes, a new skill.