The Joys of Drafting

If you could call it that... Heheh. For the second time this semester I needed to pump out a short story draft to submit to my Fiction Writing class. Saying it was tough would be the understatement of the century.

I actually started working on a draft for this round of workshops when the first round was still going on. I had the most amazing and inspirational dream that would not leave me alone, so I decided I would write it. Problem was that it's just a bit too long...and epic...and did I mention long? Heheh. So rather than start from the beginning, I decided to write my draft starting at a point just after halfway through the story, when the main character reaches a very important realization that affects the rest of the entire story.


And then I started reading Darkest Mercy, and the prologue for the same story I was already writing started to bounce around my skull and interfered every time I sat down to work on what I already had. Figuring throwing the short prologue down on paper would get it to leave me alone, I opened new Word document and got to work...

Ten pages later (not ten pages of prologue! both it and the first chapter) and my original draft was erased from my memory. The only problem was Spring Break. I'm not gonna lie. I could have spent a good portion of my time working on the draft, but... Yeah... I took the time to enjoy my break so I'll be able to graduate with (hopefully) my sanity intact, heheh. So, needless to say, Sunday found me sitting in front of Emmett with as many upbeat Japanese, Korean, and Chinese dance songs I could find in my iTunes library on a constant shuffle.

Twenty-one pages beastly pages...

And it only took me all damn day. -__-

I was ready to beat my head against the wall by the time I finished. Not only had my brain died a horrible death several hours beforehand, but I was doped up on Nyquil in an attempt to stave off the sinus infection I'd been battling all break. Reading through the draft this morning was a joke. Random words like "a," "an," and "the" were missing and I made some of the dumbest spelling errors. *face palm* Luckily, I was able to revise the draft one more time before I had to head off for work. The only problem there was that I had this brilliant idea (*queue sarcasm*) to take a copy of my draft in with me so I'd have something to do when things were slow. Yeah... By the time I got home from class I was itching to dive back into my draft and make as many changes as I possibly could. It was a good thing, though. I'm much happier with this (third) draft than I was with the first, and it's nice to be able to stop worrying about it so much. For now.

I'm very excited about this story idea. I was surprised at the number of changes I made to the main character's personality once I finally sat down to write him out from the beginning of the tale, but they all make sense and I'm happy with them. They're all good changes that needed to be made in order to make him a more rounded and believable character (and a little less emo, lol). Because, seriously, the last thing I want to hear during my workshop is that Alex is a stock character. Or that he's a female with a penis.  -__-  Nichole will not be amused.

Anyway...there's my random energy drink powered ditty!! Heheh. I can't believe I was gone so long! I hope everyone is staying well and enjoying the arrival of spring!!

Be on the look out for a new Music Corner sometime this week!!! :D

Much love!