Last weekend I finally printed it out and read it after six weeks of waiting.

Was it a good thing to have waited? Yes. I think so. Right at the end of writing it I was feeling very fatigued, very anxious and desperate to get it done. I can’t imagine just waiting a day or two and then going back to it.

I guess my biggest surprise out of waiting several weeks to read it was this: some of the things I was sure had to be pure Velveeta, that I added in the hopes of clarifying some things in the plot line, actually didn’t bother me in the reading. Really, the most I can say about my draft is that it reads just like a book. I really loved the one character right from the start (there are two leads in this tale). But it was the second character, the one that was harder to get to know who really moved my heart at the end. It kind of sneaks up on you.

So, now I am into editing. Editing is hard because in a manuscript so big, its hard to know where to start. I have discovered that in some ways, what I have here is an 84,000 word outline. Each paragraph is really a bunch of topic sentences. So I’ve just begun to rewrite. I copy and paste a scene into a new document and rewrite. Erasing behind me as I go. It’s funny. I equate it to pouring color over top a greyscale underpainting. It’s so much more vivid in this version, built on top of the solid foundation.

However, that’s not to say that there aren’t major changes to be made, because there are. That is the hardest of all in terms of editing. The big scene shuffling, nuance adding things. I could think myself to death before I even started. No, somehow you just have to find a way to jump right in. So it’s a two stage editing process. In one stage, things that I know will stay the same, I rewrite a new draft from. For the over all big picture plotline thinking–I am trying to summarize the story with different turns in the plot.

Trying to say no, where in the current plot I’ve said yes–just trying to see what changes would happen. Today I discovered saying no to a particular plot point takes a powerful symbol away from one of my characters. It’s kind of interesting, this process of story making. So much work. And I’m not doing it for money. Could someone pay me enough for this kind of work? Only if I get faster. Right now I’m still learning, still having to do things over. Try new methods. Just keep going. Maybe someday it will be easier. Less dire. Less serious. Next time its going to be something whimsical.