I used to have an arrangement with a friend and fellow writer where we would send each other 1000 words a day. It was both to be accountable to someone for our daily, and otherwise self-supervised, writing goals. But it was also a way of saying “I did this!” and pinning our work to the figurative refridgerator for someone to see. We were not obligated to read or respond to the other person’s 1000 words. But it can be nice to browse a snippet of fiction in your inbox each day, especially when it gives you a peek into the intimate thoughts of a valued soul. And frankly, she’s just a good writer who’s fun and interesting to read.
Now that I am rewriting, I have no words to send her. I am deleting 1000 words a day. This is the flip side of that ritual. The novel is too long and, well, some sections are kind of slow. So I am tightening them up. It’s crazy to me, though, to think how important those 1000 words were to eek out and send when I wrote them. And now it’s slash and burn. Syanora, suckers! I know the novel is better for it. I just never thought I would be cutting such large swathes of the manuscript. And yet the plot seems to hold up just fine.
It’s amazing the perspective you can get just from setting something down for a few months. I feel confident about the editing I’m doing. The chapters move faster. The story is more direct. I just am hoping that in the future, on my next novel (dare I assume I will have the gumption to write another?), I will have a better sense of the level of world-building detail and character reflections I actually need to lay down in my first draft. But hey, it’s the first time I’ve tried to make one of these things, so there’s bound to be some trial and error. Here’s to building it better, stronger, and faster. This novel will be my Six Million Dollar Man.
L.A. Kuemmel 