When Revisions Drive You Crazy…

I’m supposed to be finishing my new novel, and I will, but I allowed myself to get sucked into some side projects, and one of them has begun to embed itself in my brain and blank all others out.  I speak, of course, of the vampire novel revision.  The original title, “The Path of the Meteor,” while a great title for the book, is not a good marketing title.  That is the first thing eating at me.  It needs a new title.

I also like this story enough to care about it.  I knew going in that it was flawed, but I always manage to convince myself that it will be a simple matter of a few words here and there, a couple of typos, and on to the final draft.  That is never true, and particularly not when it’s been nearly twenty years since you wrote the first draft.  Couple that with the incomplete and poorly handled attempt (at one point) to convert it from first to third person POV, and you have a manuscript littered with headache-inducing plot holes, POV shifts, and over-written, not-ready-for-prime-time dialogue.

I’m also aware that I’m rapidly approaching a point where I believe too many characters continue on, and I will have to write around that as well co trim it down and make it work the way I want it to.  The only things keeping me going are my desire to get another vampire novel out there while they are hot, and my inability to let the damn thing go now that I’m so far into it.  Needless to say, I will be much more invested than initially planned, and grumpy as hell before all is said and done.

Tonight I’ll finish editing the fifteenth chapter (at least) and then will move on with Heart of a Dragon, which is resting comfortably on the up-side of sixty thousand words now.  Soon, I’ll have two complete manuscripts, and that should make me smile.

For now…I grind my teeth and work…

-DNW