Monday, August 29, 2011

Performing Surgery

Yesterday I finished my first round of edits for MIDDLE GROUND, and promptly celebrated with a beer at Flat Tail Brewery. How would I describe this book? Intense. Will I give you a sneak peak into the story? Sure. Here are ten words in the book (in this draft, anyway):

Chickens
Sandboarding
Mewling (love that word)
Detox (is that technically a word?)
Anonymous
Scrubs
Cacophony
Ninja
Precarious
Equinox

Have I peaked your curiosity? Now you're going to agonize over how chickens will play a role in this book and let me tell you, they play a HUGE roll.

Can I just say that rewriting is beautiful and wonderful and challenging and painful all at the same time? It's like performing open heart surgery on my characters (and I'm not the most delicate surgeon). There is so much to cut, rework, reconnect, disconnect, clean, swab...and great material can come out of it (fingers crossed). Each word is like a blood vessel, the sentences are veins, the paragraphs are arteries, the chapters are organs. It's bloody intense.

I'm sure I'll have about ten more drafts to go before I'm completely satisfied, but the major surgery is out of the way. Hopefully it's just some nips and tucks after this.