Edit Hell

Dear Shell,

Every so often, a writer gets the idea in their head that they really need to make a change to their current work before they get any further into the story because the story Just Isn't Working. Is this always a good idea? Well, not really. It could make the current work worse than before. It could make the writer say to themselves "what the Hell were you thinking??" But it could also take an "eh, it's okay, I'll try to finish it" story into a "Wow, I'm really enjoying writing this" story.

That's what is happening with my current novel, Crystalvein. I got to a certain point, kept crossing things out, changing things, just about pulling my hair out trying to write certain scenes. In my head, I am my main character. I'm thinking in first person, then writing it as third person. But in writing third person, I had to then change wording or thoughts. I didn't like that, it got to be confusing at times.

So, I have decided to change Crystalvein into first person instead of third person. This means doing a rewrite on what I had written already, which has meant some minor changes to most of it and a couple major changes, which have helped the story out tremendously in my opinion.

I'm still working on Dragon Eye as well, fitting in edits when I run out of steam on Crystalvein. Dragon Eye needs a major overhaul. Right now I'm working on filling in some plot holes, checking spelling and grammar. Once that is done, I'll go through again for a third draft and try to overhaul the story. Will it ever be publish-ready? Right now I'm thinking No. But I learned a lot from writing Dragon Eye. And I hope I'm not making the same mistakes again on Crystalvein that I know I made on Dragon Eye. We'll see once I get the first draft finished and start the process of editing.

Hoping to put the red pen away for awhile,
Shell