ok, so i'm a writer...winding down

if you are as invested as i am, as sure this is what you're supposed to be doing in your life as i am (writing, that is), you have done more rewrites than you thought were possible. you thought you knew your own story pretty well from the first draft. you thought you made the pertinent choices that would get you to the next chapter and the next and so on, you chose how it should end. you wrote "the end" for goodness sake. at the very least, you thought you knew your characters.

source
(this is my dad's favorite author JAMES A. MICHENER and his edits.)

but then, something strange happens. you realize you have a little more work to do. you realize that some of the "choices" you made were arbitrary, were just like picking between strawberry or blueberry...and at the time, it seemed like a "whatever" choices, but now, as you're winding down in the process, you are finding out that those choices might not have been thought out as much as you need them to.

ambiguous, ashlyne. ok, ok. i 'll be more clear. i am winding down on my novel. and so when i send it in to be read/edited/marked up, i need something to work on. depending on the edit, it could take a month to get it back. so i decided i needed to get some hours in on the sequel to the novel. sounded like a perfect idea. the first story was in my head, so i could just continue on like i was writing them back to back.  right?

the second book, however, centers around a secondary character from the first book. so i had to print out every single page that character showed up on from the first book to go through all the little stuff i had to remember. things like hair color and cut, body type, her backstory (what i'd actually said so far), the character and the main character's anecdotes, her action (big one), her voice, her everything. in order to start a sequel, you have to know your new main character as well as you knew the old one.

it seemed to start out just fine. but then as i kept reading, i realized i wasn't a fan of my own choices. she served a purpose in the first book...but her purpose ended swiftly, and it was obvious she wasn't my first priority. i made her too black and white, not gray enough. and i couldn't carry that character for another 400 pages in a sequel the way things were going.

as luck would have it, i was in new york around this time, and i happened to go out for dinner with my agent and the assistant she had for a long time (but who recently started working at random house). i had never met michelle--i know i put a picture up in the last post if you want to see her--but she had read my novel too many times. so anyway, we are sitting there at dinner. mason (my husband) and sarah (my agent) are chatting, and i'm thanking michelle for reading the book so many times. and then she said something about that character i've been going on and on about. she said she seemed a little "too evil". and it it clicked. i knew what i had to do. up until then, i had been bemoaning my choices but not knowing what to do about them. i was trying to make the new book work. like square peg, round hole work.

but once michelle said what she said (she has no idea how powerful she was), i knew i had to go back through the first book entirely. i had to change that character. i had to make her gray, fifty one shades of it. i had to tweak every scene she was in. and i had to make choices that fit her as a whole character, not just as a means to an end.

it wasn't as hard as you'd think. and it was gratifying. every time i saw her name on my screen, i thought about how i could use that scene and build on it in the next book. in essence, i was able to really start writing the sequel because i was setting myself up to tell a great story.

so, if you find yourself thinking you are done after two, three, four drafts...you're winding down. you might want to think again. there's always something to make better. and sometimes it takes writing a sequel to figure it out!! crazy.

i am so thankful for this journey. do i say that enough? i love this. i love every minute, every edit, every draft.