Rewrites

[sartorias]

I'm a visual writer, so my battle is never about seeing the story. I don't just see it, I live it--and the act of writing makes time move in the storyverse. After 49 years of doing this (I started at 8) that part is pretty much habit. It goes fast, once I see the shape of things. But after I discovered that my drafts functioned as code words*

Comments

[stephan_laurent]

What a beautifully-written commentary on the rewriting process. Your image of the house being remodeled worked great for me... good luck in your dusting operations. If you're at that stage, you must be getting close!

[sartorias]

Well, closer...I still have only half the roof built.

and to leave the metaphor behind, I cut out a crucial exchange, and have been working on it off and on for three years. It's still a mess.

[sartorias]

I was thinking about that when I read that Cassandra Austen had begged Jane to change the ending of Mansfield Park. (Everyone assumes Cassandra was the more tight-buttoned of the two, though internal evidence indicates otherwise.) That most people didn't like that ending didn't matter to Jane, who wanted her crimson divan.

[sartorias]

Yes! And all of Mary Wortley Montagus, and Anne Bronte's juvenilia....

Yeah. Cassandra went down in family history as a grim old lady, because of course she was old, and a spinster, and she'd lost her best friend in her sister. But the letters we have are filled with references to Cassandra's teasing and funny way of writing, and it's very possible that she and Jane honed their fine sense of irony and sardonic humor on one another.

[skogkatt]

Yes, rewriting is a thing I struggle very hard with. I can only hope to someday have stories other people can see instead of code words.

[sartorias]

My own has been a Sisyphean climb.

[pdlloyd]

I think that for all but a very few, the process (from beginning writer to published/polished author, from pristine page to complete well-written manuscript, etc.) is Sisyphean. Some of us are simply better at the persistence required.

[jade_sabre_301]

I love this image. And the image of the beta reader, because honestly I couldn't do without my dear, dear beta.

[sartorias]

Good betas are such a blessing.

[quiller77]

There are four books? The third is going to arrive in my mailbox any day (I couldn't wait until it came out in paperback), and now I find there is another? Oh the torture of having wait even longer.

And yes: kudos to all those beta readers out there. What would we do without them?

[sartorias]

Turned out to be four--but I promise, that's IT!

[quiller77]

What is a group of four books? A quad-something? A cycle?

I don't mind if it goes past four books. I like getting sucked into your world. It's the waiting ...

[sartorias]

something Latinate...
thanks! Well, i'd rather get back to the modern timeline, where my heart really lies. But thanks!