Whew, been busy lately doing *all* the things. I've received some more input from my beta readers, so the grueling process of rewrites continues as I filter through their feedback and adjust the story. So far all the changes are absolutely necessary, and you will have a better novel to look forward to because of it! But I won't lie:
Rewrites are Not. Fun. At. All.
At least, not usually. There are some scenes that I have a blast reworking. For instance, when I lost 115 pages and 4 chapters worth of work during the Great Laptop Crash, although it was largely miserable, some parts not only improved drastically by being rewritten from the bottom up, but actually--in my opinion, anyway--turned out a lot more impactful or (as in the case of the opening to Chapter 3, which you will understand once you get there) much funnier. Despite the overall darker themes of this book, I still try to incorporate my customary sarcasm and awkward humor and the occasional pithy comment...or the occasional lame dad-joke worthy pun, usually uttered by Gren and met with eye rolls by all.
In addition to rewrites, as you may have guessed from the title of this post as well as the attached picture, I have acquired myself a new guitar. She is beautiful and plays like a dream and her name is Hela and I love her. I decided to get back into music and poetry about two months ago, and I'm so glad I did. One might think that adding another creative focus would reduce the amount of time and energy I have to make Hidden happen by this December, but honestly, the opposite is true. Having a musical outlet again--beyond my private dance and singalong parties in the kitchen while cooking dinner or doing the dishes, or while weeding the garden or changing the chickens' water, that is--has helped me channel some of that anxious energy elsewhere so that I am in a better headspace for my prose. Considering I've been into mostly metalcore and power metal lately, that probably makes sense.
I have another creative side-project to announce as well, and I promise this one won't take away from my novel writing either! As much as I would love to be as successful as GRRM, I'd also like to think I'm not going to let myself be distracted from *actually* putting out that next story...but we'll let that shade just lie there where it landed. **Glares in: where's my Winds of Winter!?!?** Anyway, I'm going to keep the particulars of this side-project vague for now since the project is just getting off the ground, but let's just say there's some collaborative screenwriting in my future. As we get further along--perhaps once shooting begins--maybe I'll release some tidbits here and there, but we shall see.
That's all for now! I have some more scenes to edit and some more scale drills to run. Gotta rebuild that grip strength and improve that speed, after all.
Comments