Sigh! It's Done

As some of you may know, my heart and soul have really been poured into my epic fantasy series. A series that has been in long delay. It's taken almost a year and a quarter to finish the 5th draft. And there will be at least two more passes on this thing. But this was the hardest draft to complete. I had three scattered drafts of this work done last year, but it had a serious plot hole in it. It had to be fixed, especially since I had two more books in the series already written. It would not be simple.

 

When I originally decided to rework the plot line, I thought it would be a simple thing. But it wasn't. All kinds of things changed in the last third of the book. And I had to change the first half of the book to focus in more on the romance plot. Everything changed. Almost every scene in several chapters had to be stripped down, cried over, and rewritten. The writing in these scenes were awful, rushed, lacking in detail and emotion. I knew I was in trouble. I asked for help and got back, "the writing is awful, your prose is worse, I can't read this" from my reader. But it was just what I needed. It was the truth.

 

I knew this draft hadn't met my expectations. I just couldn't pick apart what was wrong. Getting the truth, though painful in the first moments, broke through my confusion. It still took almost two months to finish this draft, but I finished it. And I'm glad I did. Because through the process I figured out what was wrong. And I can fix it now that I've fixed the plot line. But that's Wednesday's work. Tonight, I just want to have dinner with the family.

 

Love,

 

Melanie