Here I am, and I survived.
I looked at my first five scenes. The first five scenes of my novel. I started by reading it – just to read. Here are some things that I noticed.
- Some of it is embarrassingly bad.
- Some of it is okay.
- All of it has opportunity.
Opportunity – that’s the operative word. I am overwhelmed with opportunity. And it feels great.
I looked at those first five scenes and I walked into the world that two months ago I created in the early pre-dawn mornings before doing my “real job” and I’ve come to the conclusion that that was the warm up. Just from five scenes, I had explosions of ideas in my mind that weren’t coming when I cranked out those 2000 words for 30 days straight.
Here’s what I think you should do if you are just started to edit your book. I’m open for suggestions, but this is what I’m doing.
1) I’m enjoying it. Yeah, I am. I love re-reading the plot of my story. It’s been odd. Part of me recalls some scenes with exquisite detail, and another part gets shocked about the plot.
2) I’m embracing opportunity. I have been examining the characters of the story and there are so many different directions it could go. That has been fueling me to really daydream about sub-plots and conflict.
3) I’m taking notes on every scene. I know I’ve emphasized this in the past, but I really love the Scrivener APP and how you can take notes and keep a running tally of what needs done to fix the scenes.
All that being said, it feels otherworldly. I have moments of happy surprise, and moments of horror! But at the end of the day, I encourage myself with one truth:
I wrote a book. It’s a book that I didn’t have a year ago, and nothing will change that.
Keep reading and writing!