Friday, May 3, 2019

A Draft in Three Adjectives

A description of a draft in three acts:

Act 1 - Interminable
Once upon a time, the current WIP was started. It was bright. It was shiny. It was NEW! And there was every expectation that the WIP would meet the same warm welcome from its editor as the first two books of the series. Plot twist: It didn't. Broken hearted, it slunk away to lock itself in a drawer.

Act 2 - Intractable
Eight years passed. The WIP was near death, gasping its last few gasps when the drawer opened. "Guess what!" the author chirped. "We're baaaaack!" The WIP wasn't having it. Abandoned? Tossed aside? And then resurrected like some paper-based Lazarus? Nope. Wasn't gonna be that easy to bring this work back to life. But the writer wouldn't quit. Just. Wouldn't. Give. Up. Slowly, over a stupidly long period of time and with far too many words, the WIP and the writer got reacquainted. As in any good romance, they learned to trust one another again, at long last. They achieved mutual respect. Maybe even affection.

Act 3 - Imminent
And now the WIP is within a solid day's attention of reaching The End. Assured of a warm reception, (because that contract has already been signed) the WIP is barreling for a beta read and then to its editor. Which means we're right back to Act 1 for the next WIP.

2 comments:

  1. YAY for approaching the end!! Do eeeeeet! *shaking the pom poms because completing a manuscript — regardless of the contracts and editors and what — is the BEST!

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  2. Excellent news! It's amazing how picking up something old like that is SO difficult. We're just not the same person we were when writing it before.

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