Drawing from the Well
Queries: 48 (+0)
Rejections: 33 (+0)
First Eighth
Chapter 2 of 89
Scene 5 of 498
Word Count: 1266 (+230)
It’s not my thousand-word goal, but it is writing and at the end of the day, writing is writing. I’ll get into this more in the discussion below, but I’m harvesting text from an earlier draft and it’s much slower than straight drafting. With any luck, though, it’ll be the fastest chapter to edit when I get down to it.
ONE DAY UNTIL #PitMad!
Filling the Well
The Bible: 76%
Blue Lily, Lily Blue: 24%
Tunnel of Bones: 9%
The Handmaid’s Tale: 3%
Making a little progress here. I’m looking forward to doing more reading on Tunnel of Bones later tonight and some listening to Blue Lily, Lily Blue tomorrow during work. My passion for reading comes and goes and right now it’s coming and I want to ride that wave. Surf’s up, Stratanauts!
Polishing the Well
Tomorrow is #PitMad. I only realized it about an hour ago and I’ve been giddy ever since. My pitches are ready. I can’t wait to dive in right at 8am tomorrow. Wish me luck. I’ve got a good feeling about this.
Well Chat
Harvesting Your Failures
Nothing written is ever wasted. There’s just a time and place for it. Sometimes it’s for this manuscript, sometimes it’s for another, sometimes it’s just the barrier to guide you to what you’re supposed to write. It all serves a purpose.
I’m in one of those phases now. I’m working on the second chapter of Book 2. It was the first chapter in earlier false starts and ever since I composed the closing chapter of Book 1, I knew I wanted to write it this way. It’s Meibor’s opening chapter in Book 2 and it was so fun to write the first time around. The problem was that the first go-round was over fifty pages. Unless you really know what you’re doing and you have a fantastic vision for a chapter, no chapter should be this long. I’m talking The Last Battle in Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson level magnificence if you’re going to go this long. The chapter I wrote IS NOT.
So I’m in the process of retooling it to fit into an appropriate-length chapter. And that means going back to what I wrote before and grabbing a scythe. I’m harvesting the best parts from a laundry basket of fun ideas. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also fun going back through those ideas. When it’s done, I should have distilled down a punchy, creative chapter.
To do it, though, I have to tear apart what I wrote before and recycle it. So that hurts a bit. I don’t get to keep all of it and that sucks, but to make something better, I have to be honest about how wandering the chapter was before. And I have to approach it without fear. It’s going to be better.
And this is true of most things in life. No work is ever a waste even if it fizzles out or fails to come to fruition. You learn things, you figure out what doesn’t work, and you grow. Then the next thing you design or create is better for it. So when you have to cut bait, remember that everything you’re “tossing out” is really just being tossed back into the hopper to be used at another time. You’re growing so don’t lament your losses.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG