Having a false start shouldn’t mean a full stop. It happens and when it does, you should review what happened, pick yourself up and start again.
There have been many times I’ve had to rewrite sections of a book when I’m in the editing phase. Never have I had a book where I’ve started. Thrown away what I’ve written. Started again, only to throw that away too.
Until now, that is.
It’s been no secret that I struggled during the recent plague years. Very little writing was done although I did think about it a lot (usually with guilt weighing me down that I wasn’t writing more).
I came up with a solid plot premise for Mik Murdoch 5. I started writing it (see above) several times. Very little of that writing will ever see the light of day (or the eyes of readers). It either didn’t capture the story the way I wanted, was paced too slow or just wasn’t good.
Ignore the bad…or maybe don’t
Yes, I know I’ve said write past the bad because you can always edit it later. This was bad in a way that wouldn’t allow the story to move forward. Not painting myself into a corner, but simply not allowing anything to move.
There is some good stuff in there though. On a couple occasions I wrote scenes out-of-order. Those scenes will likely partially, or fully find their way into the draft version of the book. The false starts also gave me the chance to really consider the direction the story was meant to go; they helped me flesh out the plot.
I now have a more complete idea of the story and where it should go. I’m writing more frequently and that sense of excitement I used to get when a story is working is coming back to me.
What’s Next?
I’m not going to tell you the book is guaranteed to be finished. I think it will be this time. I have set some timeline goals in place that should be achievable. I’m enjoying the writing.
My immediate goal though – as in tonight – is to sit down and spend another hour working on the book. I plan to add another 1,000 words (that is my current daily goal – doable with work and family factored in). It may be a good 1,000 words or not, but I’m going to keep moving the story along.
Tomorrow? More of the same. The weekend is hard to predict because I have other things on the go. But, by the end of January, I hope to hit 15,000 words.
I will keep you posted.
