To Sleep, Perchance to Dream, or Clue by Four
This round of revisions of StT is resulting in an even longer manuscript, as I was afraid it would several weeks ago. All the same, I have been forging ahead, counting down the number of scenes I need to draft from scratch (2-ish) and the number I need to revise (5-ish). The "ishes" are because some of the revised scenes are going to be almost total rewrites, but not quite.
At the same time I've been pondering how I am going to cut, tighten, and otherwise whip into shape the ginormous pair of pants I am now looking at. One of the issues is that ever-popular problem spot, which could be summarized by the introduction to "Do-Re-Mi": "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."
But don't we all know how difficult it is to find the very best place to begin a story? --If you never have trouble with this, please tell me how you do it? Please!
There's the sage advice that a story usually starts ten pages after the writer thinks it does. So far I haven't had that response from my beta readers. They've liked the beginning.
But they haven't loved it, and I've had this sense that something would need to change with the opening. Last night it was a very strong feeling, so strong I almost convinced myself to not finish this round of revisions. Instead, I made the deliberate decision to keep going, slog through them until it is done, because I am so very close to being done with this round of revisions, and I do want to have a full manuscript to outline, as planned.
I shut down the computer, went to bed, read a few pages of current issue of The Hornbook, and shut out the light. A little while later I thought I was having trouble falling asleep, so I say there, doing what I do in that situation, letting my thoughts drift. And the opening came together in my mind.
I did not bolt out of bed and rush to write it down. I like Stephen King's recent advice to not write things down. The good ideas are the ones that stick. So I filed this one away in my mind. Eventually I got up for the reason most of us get up in the night, and I also checked the clock.
It was 4:20. I hadn't had trouble falling asleep after all. Instead, I'd woken up early, early. I still did not go write the idea down. However, when the alarm did wake me from a very strange dream that I no longer remember, I put my StT notebook in my pack and took it with me to school. I didn't have time to write until late in the day, and the words didn't exactly flow, but the scene and the beginning and ending words are still there.
It's early days yet, and I am still going to finish this revision so that it's complete, but I will also get this re-revision down on paper.
That way it will be ready to share with everyone at the next Vermont College of Fine Arts Novel Writing Retreat, for which I am registered. (Yay!!!!) Thanks once again to saraharonson for organizing these retreats, which have become my own particular form of March Madness. (Did I mention yay?)
This manuscript is so far from ready to wear with my spiffy boots, I am not even going to post that photo. But I have the scissors, needles, and thread that will get it there in style.