Our editor has acknowledged receipt of the manuscript and it will probably be at least a week or two (or three!) before we hear from her. That gives me plenty of time to start obsessing about some new project.
And I know just the project. I pulled out a novel manuscript a few months back and reading over it nearly killed me. It is so obvious to me that I wrote it 3 or 4 years ago. It’s also evident, though not nearly as obviously, that isn’t a complete los - I’d be silly to totally scrap it when it has the potential to be fun.
So, I’ve embarked on a rewrite. Honestly, total rewrites are sometimes easier than minor revisions. At least for me. I’ve got the old manuscript open in one window and my new manuscript in another and I’m, in essence, starting my story all over again while using the old as a roadmap.
Roadmaps are useful.
So useful that I’ve got almost 2000 words in today. And I don’t think I’m done. This is way faster than writing it from scratch! Here’s hoping I can whip this thing into shape.
7:35 pm on August 16th, 2008
How was the experience of collaborative non-fiction, as compared to fiction? (Or had you done both before, and so this wasn’t a new thing for you?)
6:14 pm on August 17th, 2008
Collaborative nonfiction has been a total first for me - I’ve always been way more fiction oriented so figuring out a process for this has been a real learning experience. I want to actually post about this because it’s really long.