Today I start on the second draft.

Today I start on the second draft.

I feel no exhilaration. 

Writing is work. 

I said I would wake up and write as many days as I could, even if I don't want to. Today, it feels as dull as writing an analysis in an office. 

In order to achieve my March deadline where I am ready to submit finished chapters to publishers and literary agents, I have to take out (again) the second half of my original idea. The sections that I had painstakingly put back in, and integrated it with the first half. It's just too much work. Something will be lost. I hope this book works out, and I can write the second half as a follow up. If the first book doesn't work out, I will still write the second one and try and submit that. 

There are so many bad books out there, now I know why. It's so hard to write a good one. Even if I study all the great works, I don't think it will teach me exactly how to write a good one, because it's alchemy, just when all the elements fit together: the speed, the characters, the story. Somewhere, each author puts it together in their own way, and the cake is baked and it taste good or not. I have made some terrible loafs of bread lately as I experiment with my new bread machine. Except the bread took 10 minutes to make, and 3 hours to cook, the last part is all taken care of by a machine. This thing is going to take months. 

So today, I am taking out the second part, the part that links the book to present day, the part that bring the book back to the beginning which means time line wise, the book is a never ending, which I worked really hard to create. 

This also means, it kills off the biggest motivation of the main character, of what makes her who she is. 

And then I kill one of my favorite characters, the slightly jealous, closeted gay boy who is in love with the boyfriend of the protagonist. How I love Dick. How much he needs to go because we don't have enough room for him! And what about the funniest scene in the book? I hope to still work it in. 

I am going to breathe. There is one more post to write for the food blog and then to start the second draft.