I did not think it would take over a month to start wordsmithing of the second draft. Planning the revision was not that hard, but finding time to focus on it was. Looking for a new job is exhausting, demoralizing, and time-consuming. In between those activities, I’ve been teaching Professional Scrum classes. I’ve had enough students to make the classes worth teaching but not enough to believe I can stop looking for full-time work. I enjoy teaching very much, but two full-day classes plus preparation the day before and decompressing the day after can really distract from creative pursuits.
Nevertheless, the second draft is under way. I have a lot of new scenes to weave into the middle of the narrative. I can use the first four chapters almost as they are. That “almost” does a lot of heavy lifting, though. I’m changing the timeline and even though the change itself seems small, it requires moving the sequence of the early scenes. Doing that is harder than writing new material.
This is my process. I write a lot of words to discover the story, then throw away a lot that doesn’t align with my discovery. It’s true for almost everything I write. That’s one reason I rarely write business-related material. The effort far outweighs the reward.
I’m not even going to try to forecast when the second draft might be finished. It’ll be done when it’s done, however long that takes.
Sam Falco 