Unwriting

I’ve been in a process I’ve come to think of as “unwriting” for nearly a week. I got to a certain point in the story, realized I was doing it wrong, and went back to fix it. That meant cutting a lot of stuff I’d already written. Yesterday, I finally got back to the same point in the story (in a totally different way) and back to the word count I had before the “unwriting” began. So now I can move forward. It’ll be a shortish afternoon, since I have a Good Friday concert to sing in tonight. I may try to make up the time tomorrow.

I’ve probably been a bit too hard on myself with this book. The idea was so fun and magical, but the actual thing feels like such a slog. I had to remind myself that the process of writing it has nothing to do with the process of reading it. In fact, the more of a slog it is to write, the more effort put into it, the more magical it may be to read. Also, this is a draft. I can sprinkle the pixie dust in when I revise it. That’s why I decided to write the whole thing instead of just a proposal. I only really get a sense of the full impact of the story when I write the whole thing, and that means I do a lot of revising of the opening to fit what I discover along the way. My mantras with this book are “good enough is the enemy of great” and “be too good to ignore.” I want editors to read this and desperately want to buy this book, so it’s worth the effort to make that happen.

In other news, I saw a recent survey that younger readers are more likely to be looking at Instagram than stuff like Twitter or Facebook. As a YA writer, I probably need to look into that, but I have to confess to being utterly clueless about it. It only works on phones, right? I seldom think to use my phone. But I’m a decent photographer (I had to take a course in college as part of my broadcast news degree), so it’s in my skill set. But I think in words, not images, which is why I’m a writer, so it will take some thought. Maybe I’ll do some exploring and brainstorming this weekend.