Writing in July

I had an apparently overly ambitious goal to finish the second full draft of my novel about two sisters by the end of July. I am ten out of twenty chapters in. A lot has changed. I've removed a ton of characters, for the better. I consolidated them and tweaked personalities and it's much more weildy now. I changed a lot of names, also for the better, in my opinion.

Editing is pretty difficult for me. Not the grammar part, that comes pretty easily. (I wrote, in an incorrect sentence.) It's the changes in plot, going back and rewriting to make it different enough, but still following the skeleton of the first draft. It's a slow going process and much of the time I just get tired out of the story. It's very much a "first novel" in feel. There's too much of myself in it in characters. My narrative moves clumsily. My characters feel silly. But, I want to finish. I think it's worth it to finish it, and if I don't this is the one that will nag at me forever.

There are some really cool things I can do with it, including tying it into the universe I started in another book, and the histories and presents of the characters are something I think are worth exploring more than I did in my first draft. I may end up adding a lot more to this than I have, which means longer writing times as well.

I might not finish by the end of July but I'm still chugging along. When August starts, I will be moving on to other projects - one a TV pilot and the other a sequel to another novel - but I will periodically come back to this and finish it to do a third edit by the end of the year, polish it up, and move along.

In the mean time, my weeks are filled with interning and earning the Industry, and my evenings are filled with friends and cats. Life is good.