Well, shit.
No, my computer didn't die (again). I still have the thirty-ish pages I started on last week. Let me explain it by recounting that special moment from yesterday afternoon.
The first part of the book (not half; part) is about how the Virgo and Leo settlements on Cancer come together to form their own government after their respective empires abandoned them, thus forming the oldest (and what would become the largest) democracy in the Twelve Colonies. So, I'm typing the final sentences. Type, type, type. Put the period on, delete the extra spaces, and finished. I leaned back in my chair, glanced at the preceding paragraph or two, and said, "I hate it."
Somehow, as I wrote these thirty pages in the last several days, the thought didn't cross my mind. I believed everything was going OK and according to my outline. The characters were fine, there was a flourish of humor, some action, ... yeah, I didn't like it.
What was the problem? It feels too slight. Not just because the story was told in thirty pages. The first part of Book Three: Leonis isn't much longer than that but I like that section of Leonis perfectly well. No, there was just something missing. It feels too thin. It's like I didn't have anything more to say than, "Here's what happened. Plot, plot, plot." Sometimes my writing can downshift to that kind of beat-by-beat storytelling, but that's typically in action scenes and the like which demand it.
Yeah. So I will, basically, start over.
I will not attempt a rewrite at this stage. I will, instead, skip ahead to the meatier portion of my Book Six outline which details the struggles of a mining community against the leadership of a company and their government. Right now, I think this section alone will comprise Book Six.
(Will I include those thirty pages in the mythical Colonies of Kobol - Special Edition? Maybe. We're still pretty far away from that, though.)
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for the update. Can't wait to read it.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
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