write drunk; edit in a puddle of sober tears

True to my word, I did not meet my self-imposed February 28 edit deadline, but I did complete it. So now that I’m one full edit in (if you can call it that), I expect things to start getting easier. The grammar robots will comb the manuscript while I sleep; the characters will have witty conversations that magically fill the pages. The cement I’ve ordered to fill those plot holes will arrive any moment with a fully staffed paving crew, and all the agents who have been hanging on every word of my sporadically tended blog will start ringing the doorbell before I’ve sent a single query.

Right?

Wow. This is hard. If I didn’t love writing so much, I would quit just for the agony that follows. Nay, not quit–I would storm out of the office spewing obscenities and tell the agents to shove it where the sun don’t shine.

But, I love writing.

It’s funny how forcing yourself to sit down and evaluate 80,000 words you so painstakingly wrote can bring such perspective. When it was all said and done and I’d ignored the edit plan I’d laid out for myself yet somehow managed to blindly chop my way through to the end, I realized something very important: my story lost its way.

I suspect this happens often. I’m positive it must’ve happened in each of the 9 novels I wrote before this one, but I’ve just never taken the time to figure it out.

The words were okay. They can be finessed. The story can be filled in, the characters groomed. The first draft was a good skeleton. It really does have potential to be a great story. But the finished product – even the 2nd draft – it wasn’t even the same species as the creature I set out to create.

Isn’t the whole reason I haven’t given up on this thing that I had a burning desire to tell a story that meant something to me? A cautionary tell about the regression of women’s reproductive rights and the power our “protectors” and lawmakers siphon out of us with each archaic new law that is put to paper?

The thin band of raised flesh encircling her wrist was barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Averie ran her fingers along the bracelet that branded her as a United States citizen, lingering at the port on the underside of her wrist. 

That prologue, which I wrote with such passion and fury, is my favorite part of this whole book, because it was written before I lost that vision.

The next edits may not be sprinkled with fairy dust, but at least I have regained the vision for what they should be. I promise to honor that vision in the next edit, and every edit that follows.