Comments | rj_anderson: I am too stupid to live (but happy, just the same)

rj_anderson

I am too stupid to live (but happy, just the same)

Jul 23, 2009 08:44

As many of my readers know, I've been struggling with my dearly beloved but also insanely complicated and demanding standalone YA novel, Touching Indigo, for two years now.

( A brief history of my attempt to write this book )

writing, ultraviolet

Comments 20

lkmadigan July 23 2009, 15:53:51 UTC

She's such a big old treasure, isn't she?

rj_anderson July 23 2009, 15:57:28 UTC

Seriously, I owe her my LIFE by this point.

kerravonsen July 23 2009, 16:06:45 UTC

So it was one of those "don't write the boring bits" revelations?

But don't beat yourself up for being "stupid"; if I recall correctly, in the very earliest version of the story (when Alison was Thea) the death that put her in psychiatric hospital wasn't that important to the plot; the dramatic opening was her encounter with the "indigo box" (so to speak). I assume there is no "indigo box" in this version, but that doesn't mean that you would automatically set the story at a different point in the heroine's timeline, since that was how you'd first written it, you were used to thinking of it that way. Doesn't make you stupid.

rj_anderson July 23 2009, 16:27:06 UTC

It was; but sometimes it's hard to know what the "boring bits" are. Really, I'm going to be writing all the same bits, or most of them anyway, but Alison's perspective on them is going to be different.

But you're absolutely right about the hangover from the original draft of the story. Just when you think you've changed everything you need to change...

anywherebeyond July 23 2009, 16:09:47 UTC

Dude, I'm glad to have helped! :D :D Now I can't wait to read the finished book!

rj_anderson July 23 2009, 16:27:40 UTC

*hugs* Thank you!

kristin_briana July 23 2009, 16:37:22 UTC

So glad you got it mostly figured out! :) Good luck. It sounds intriguing.

imaginarycircus July 23 2009, 16:49:22 UTC

Yeah, I think we get so attached to the story as we've told it in draft one or even draft four that sometimes it is very hard to see that throwing a lot out and starting from a different place or adding a POV or changing it will break everything open. But it is exhausting work. I'm at 30% of draft v here.