Getting Drafty In Here

When asked for advice, I have been known to recommend outlining novels before sitting down to write them. I have also been known to warn that no outline survives first contact with the writing process.

Lately I have been forced to amend this homily slightly. No first draft, and few second drafts either, survives contact with the editorial process. Or even with self-assessment.

Last fall I was extremely enthusiastic about the pace of my current project (sometimes known, apparently, as a WIP or Work In Progress). As of the autumnal solstice I had written something like 94,000 words, two-thirds of the projected length (the novel is something of a bildungsroman, if I can say so without seeming pretentious) and things seemed to be going well.

Then, before beginning work on the third act, I sat myself down and reread what I'd done thus far. Not a great move.

I wound up scrapping the entire middle third of the book, along with all of the new viewpoint characters I'd introduced. (The characters are still there, but we no longer get inside their heads, at least not in the middle third.) I've just finished a complete rewrite of that second act, and now I am being given to understand, by the editorial committee that is my writing group, that the first part also needs a drastic rewrite, and not just the tweaking I'd anticipated requiring.

So now I'm working on a third draft, and thus far nobody has seen more of the book than the first dozen chapters or so.

Thing is, this oughtn't to bother me. A Tangled Weave (order now, order often, etc. &c.) is a much, much better book following the editorial process than it was beforehand. In fact, I now realize it's something of a miracle that Robert Runte accepted the novel in the first place, given what I actually submitted to him.

I guess I just thought I'd be completing projects much faster, now that I'm writing full-time. At this rate, the current project isn't going to be in shape for sending out until sometime in late 2020. And I've got other things I want to be working on. <cries bitter tears, feels sorry for self>