Rewrite!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

So I'm into my second draft of this novel, because when it's ready to go I'd like it to be as high-quality as possible. I'm changing a lot of stuff at the beginning because it frankly sounded really cheesy to me, but overall progress is being made and I do like that.

I think the biggest problem with rewrites comes when you've really developed your characters and they're severely different from the way you first imagined them. Basil especially has changed since I started writing him, so it's going to be tough to look through that first draft and fix him up. It's also tough when you like a character since they've grown and you have to go back to writing them pre-growth to get them up to that moment where they change. That's especially hard for me because I adore post-growth Basil because he's even more openly...well, that would give away too much, so I don't really want to get into that at the moment, but you get the idea!

In the meantime, I've gotten Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin for Christmas and I can't wait to really dig into it. It looks like an excellent biography. I like those. A lot. It's hard to sit and read (or write, for that matter) when there are growling Old English sheepdogs playing in your house because they're adorable and distracting, but that's the life of a babysitter, I suppose. It happens.

And hey - because of Barnaby and Louise, Basil's going to now own a sheepdog, as well. I cannot wait for fanart of this.