I FINISHED THE SECOND DRAFT OF MY NOVEL last week, two whole days ahead of schedule!
Oh my gosh it’s been a long road to get here.
During COVID, I kicked around an idea about a female political candidate standing on a debate stage whose thoughts about her life and the race and the universe in the moments before she speaks make up the entire book. I imagined the last line would be, “Mrs. Rosen, the first question goes to you.”
But I was still a little too close to it – I had just lost a race for LA City Council – so I let that go. (Now that I think about it, though, it might be a cool short story. Hmm.)
Then I wrote the first few chapters of a novel in which a California woman moves back to her hometown in northwest Colorado to care for her aging parents, and ends up running for Congress against the incumbent, who also happens to be her childhood sweetheart.
BORING. I threw those pages out and started over.
Now the book was about a woman who moved back to her hometown in northwest Colorado during COVID, and ended up running for School Board against her childhood sweetheart. The smaller stage allowed more space for bad behavior, which I liked. Finally I managed to usher the story from first page all the way to THE END. That was sometime last summer.
But it had one big problem.
When I went back to read the draft, I hated the main character and I realized she was the wrong vehicle for all the things I wanted to talk about.
So I did what one does, and I killed her off for draft two
She’s literally dead on page one of the draft I just finished, and FINALLY I’ve found the angle that allowed me to say all the things I wanted to say, like:
What are the prices we pay for speaking truth to power?
What makes a meaningful life?
Whose rage is valid, and whose rage is considered insane?
Is a close community a safe haven or a danger zone?
Is the interloper always the bad guy, or is the interloper the only one who speaks truth?
So that’s my story, and I’m (finally) sticking to it.
I do see a giant overhaul ahead, but the bones are there. And I love revisions. Love love love revisions. I mean of course I do.
So keep your eyes on this space to follow along with my edit process. Over the next months I’ll share a birds eye view of all the tools and practices in my Dessert First! Developmental Edit package as I work through prepping this book for Draft 3. Get all those updates direct in your inbox by subscribing to my Unruly Writer newsletter today.
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