We had the big discussion of my new novel at my critique group December 6 and it went very well. The best thing about it was that I had written questions ahead of time and notes about what I thought needed work and everything was validated by what the group said. It’s nice to know I’ve gotten to a place where I can be objective and critical about my own work. And, of course, as always, they had a
lot of interesting and good ideas for me to ponder.
I do have a lot of work ahead of me because I want to steer the focus toward the relationship between the main character and his brother. I have no idea how long it will take me but I’ve begun writing today. “Writing?” you say. “But I thought you were revising.” I am. But when I revise, I often rewrite whole sections. When I have such a wholesale change, I usually start from scratch and then pull in the
stuff I need from the previous draft or drafts.
Since I wanted to start the story at a different place, I started over with a new first chapter. We’ll see how much of the other draft I end up using.
