Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!

Hello there.

As I talked about last Friday, I have decided to rewrite my novella and turn it into a novel. Well, I am proud to announce that the rewrite has begun. All other projects, save one collaboration with another writer and of course my short stories, will be on hold until this rewrite is done.

From here on, this project will be called "Sister" for the sake of the blog, although that is not the true title of the work. If you have been a follower of my blog for a while, and have read my posts, then you know which project this is. After months upon months of putting it off, I have finally started rewriting it. It is a rather big undertaking. The novella has its moments that are extremely good, but for the most part, the writing skill is so varied that I am forced to just rewrite the entire thing and use the great parts in the new manuscript.

So this begs a question. Of course it does, do you not know me by now? There is always a question.

In rewrites, what kind of goal do you set? Me, I am hoping to get a chapter of writing rewritten a day, which means this project will be done within thirty days, give or take a few. Maybe forty days, as I have some extending to do.

When rewriting, do you take it as it comes, or do you make goals? This is my first major novel rewrite. I had a novel that I revised and revised and revised in, but never a total rewrite. The revise, revise, revise did not work for me. I ended up with jilted scenes and chapters that seemed unrelated to the true story even though they were... THAT novel is a total mess and it will take a lot of work to make it "doable" again. That novel, I am afraid, is one of those epic tales that spans generations and will be much larger than the 80,000 words it is now. But that is another topic altogether.

Rewriting a novel or novella is largely different than short story rewrites. I can write, rewrite, revise, edit and submit a short story in a single day. In hours, if I am really cooking. A novel... totally different story.

To be fair, even though "Sister" has been a long going on (read as years) project, it was written in a matter of months. It was simply that those months were spanned out over several years. So, I have some work ahead of me. The story arc is fairly consistent, but there are monsters around every corner, no redemption for my protagonist (how is that for fucked up?), and of course, tons of people die throughout the story. I admit that I like to kill main and or major characters. But that need not happen in all of my stories.

I am growing, people! It is a frigging miracle.

So, can I write a horror novel without killing loads of people? Sure I can. I can leave people alive. Does that mean no one will die?

Say it is not so!

Well, it is not so, people. I will kill someone... just not quite so many someones.

So, tell me a bit about rewriting the novels. It is a new experience for me and I would like some other takes on the experience.

And on Friday, along with my word counts, look for some news from me with... clickable linkage (haha, not clickable this time).

Bet you are really curious now huh?

Till then...

Peace & Love,
~Effie

To revisit an old work?

Okay, so work on the current novel has all but stopped. When you only manage thirty words in two days, after a long silence on that front, it's time to give it up--at least for a while. It's that thirty thousand word wall. Sometimes, it takes a bit to scale it and climb down the other side. I will get there. I just need time away from the current work in progress. I'm causing a brain freeze with it, so it's time to step away.

What to do with my time, other than writing short stories?

Well, I'm going to revisit my short novel, The Seventh Sister. The story is actually a knock-your-socks-off kind of tale. I just haven't bothered to perfect it yet because it's only fifty thousand words (roughly). One person has read this book, my friend Angel Rose Darke. I sent it to her a while back. Well, I'm thinking it may need some revising. Why?

Although the story is there, it still needs some polish. I wrote The Seventh Sister last year after I completed The Spider. By the time it was done, I was so deep into editing The Spider that Sister got left in the lurch. The fact that I hacked The Spider to pieces and turned it into something not even publishable by a Kindergartner's standards is beside the point. It's time to go back and see what Sister is all about and what needs doing with it.

Hopefully, there's not much.

Knowing me, it needs a total rewrite.

But, I'm happy to go back to it. I like the story, as all writers should with their own work, but this novel is one of my favorites by me (Funnily enough, I'm the only person who has read all of my novels, so I'm biased heh) and I think it deserves some attention. At last.

But for now...

Peace & Love, y'all.
~E.