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Finding Time to Write

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So I’m hit an odd sort of stumbling block when it comes to my novella.

Every day I take the train in to work and I at least try to get an hour of writing in each way. Now, I’m not saying that I’m perfect, there are days when I don’t write a word, but I try. And, for the most part, I succeed. Which is great and brilliant and means that I don’t have to try to fit writing into the other parts of my day, which are filled with my job and my child and all the perks of being a moderately popular adult.

Unfortunately, one of the trains that I take is down for some sort of maintenance and won’t be back on line for three to six months (and WTF is that about?? Three to six months??? Are you kidding me???) so I have been finding other ways in to work other than the train. That means that I’m not getting my daily two hours of writing/editing in. And that is a problem. Because I am so, so, so close to finishing the rewrites on my novella. And because I really miss writing? Writing is something I do just for the enjoyment I get out of it. And not having those few hours a day to just do what I love most is really unhappy making. In the worst sort of way.

I am not sure what I am going to do about it either, since I really can’t magic a train into working order or anything. I guess I’m just going to have to find somewhere else in my day to squeeze my writing in.

But where?

Progress is slow but steady

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So… I haven’t done a thing on my novel all week, but I have been doing major restructuring to my novella, which I think evens things out. With the help of Becky, I have managed to iron out a much more believable character arc for the more problematic of my male leads (his previous character arc was something along the lines of “learns to use his words” which is a very good life lesson but not much of a character arc). I’m super pleased with the direction he’s going now, even if it does mean that I have to scrape/dramatically rewrite pretty much every part of his POV that I’ve written.

But that’s the fun thing about being a writer? The “oh god, that means I have to change *everything* again” bit?

Oh wait…

No, really. It’s not that bad. I mean, no one gets it right on the first go. If they did, editors would be out of a job, right? And, seeing as how at least one of my friends makes her living doing copy editing, that would be a very bad thing indeed. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have reached the point where I have accepted the need for rewrites and have embraced the fact that I will be spending the next month or so of my life doing them. And that, once they are done, there is a very good chance that Becky (or some other poor, unsuppecting fool) will read them over, cringe a bit, and then hand them back covered in notes. Because that’s the process. That’s how things gets done.

And that’s okay because each round your writing gets a little better, a little closer to being ready for public consumption. And it’s worth a little pain and suffering on my end if it means that my future readers have something worthwhile to read.

Oh what fun it is to rewrite…

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So I’m hip deep in rewrite land right now which, for anyone who knows anything about writing, is not a fun place to be. Especially since my rewrites involve a massive restructuring of the plot. Yippie.

It’s for the best, I know it is. And I’m really excited about the new direction I’m going with. But, god, so much work. So many, many words to just delete because they don’t fit anymore. Or, if not delete, then find some way to reconfigure them so that they do fit in with all the new stuff I’m writing and blaharg. So not fun. But so essential to putting out something that people actually want to read and will get emotionally invested in and, hopefully, love enough to tell their friends about. Because that’s the end game, right? To please your readers. So it’s worth it to spends hours and hours and hours thinking about the best way to improve what you’ve written and then more hours and hours and hours actually doing that improving bit.

Thankfully, I’m lucky enough to have an amazing cheerleader on my side, my good friend Becky, who is willing to listen to me whine work things out.  She’s seriously such a life saver.  And not just because she thinks every word I write is gold.  *grins*

No really, every time I talk to her I feel my book improving.  She helps me work through what needs to happen and what babies I have to kill and isn’t afraid to give me squint eyes and redirect me when I go off into left field.  So yeah.  If you out there, person reading this, ever end up reading my novella after it’s published, you had best send a thought of thanks in Becky’s direction.  Because it would have been one big, festering pile of plot fail without her intervention.

Even if her intervention does mean even more rewrites.