Hacking

Agent E and I are revisiting the novel I wrote that snagged her in the first place. It's been a couple of years since I wrote it and I can see many ways that it can be improved so I'm taking another crack at it because I think its an important story that can find a home with a caring editor.

The first thing I had to do was cut the first two chapters, which was rough because the first one in particular was my favorite - something to do with UPS and an urn, but I digress. I've decided the plot line that this chapter led into isn't working, so out it goes and not like a lady at the Four Seasons with a steak knife, oh no. This is pure Freddy Kruger in the first Nightmare on Elm Street (the one with an adorably young Johnny Depp that I'm old enough to have seen in a theater rather than on DVD).

The hardest part of writing sometimes is letting go of the good stuff to get to the great stuff. In cutting the first scene I've gotten rid of something clever that was funneling the story away from what it truly wants to be. Oh sure, I'll save that chapter in my orphans file where all good writing goes to die, thinking that I might use it again in another story, but we all know I won't. It will sit there in its Word file taking up precious little memory until my laptop crashes or I forget about it all together. Sniff.

Chopping, hacking, screaming and weeping - that's pretty much what my night has been like. But, you know, the book is better for it, and that's the point after all.


On this date: In 1973, Schoolhouse Rock premiered. I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill...sing it with me!