Rewriting (Yes, You Have To Do It)

Rewriting is the key to good writing. When I first write something I tend to spew out an endless stream of words onto the page. Everything I'm thinking for the scene or characters just tumbles out. Sometimes it works and it's pretty dang awesome. But usually there are sentences that don't make sense and a fountain of misspelled or misplaced words. That's the beauty of a first draft. It's pure creativity with no filters, which means you get the good and the bad. Rewriting is merely editing out the bad and finding a way to improve the good. It brings everything up a notch. But sometimes it's hard. It's hard to kill the things you create, not because they're bad, but because they just don't fit.

Rewriting a novel is a little dash of fun and whole lot of pain. It's cutting, tweaking, and grammar. I for one hate grammar sometimes. When you're staring at a screen all day, the words just sort of blend together and it get's hard to see beard from bread. Making sure you have the right amount of commas is even harder. And that's not even taking rewriting the plot into account. Rewriting the plot was necessary for me in my latest (first) novel experience. I spent a year writing my first book. I wasn't going at it hard core because I had school, so it took me a while to write it. When I was finished, I was so proud. I had my friends read it and I started querying. I thought for sure it was going to be a winner. Then my friends took forever to read it and they weren't exactly excited. Then I got an avalanche of rejections. It sucked. I thought something was wrong with me, my writing, my plot, my everything. It took me a while to realize what I had spent all that time writing was a FIRST DRAFT.

So I went back in and spent about another year completely rewriting this book. I realized a lot of it was crap and gave it a complete makeover. I'm finally done with the plot rewrites and now I'm just going back through for grammar. I polished it and now it's really shinning. Best of all, my friends read the entire book the same day I gave it to them. They said they couldn't put it down. If that's not a compliment, I don't know what is. So now I'm confident in my work and I'm insanely glad I rewrote it. Now I've started querying again and if I don't get any bites, I have no problem self-publishing. I think my book will do just fine either way. So remember to rewrite, and rewrite, and keep rewriting.