Triumph

Oh, this is one of the best feelings EVER. I’m all curled up in my ginormous writing chair with my ginormous mug of tangerine tea and my gingerbread candle on the shelf behind me. The wind is howling outside and seeping under the door. The apartment is quiet except for the click-click-click of the radiator and the tap-tap-tap of my fingers.

I just revised Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine has been a thorn in my side. It was slowing the pace. Parts of it had become wholly unnecessary. It needed to be almost entirely rewritten: delete one conversation, radically rewrite middle, add an argument, restructure ending. I knew what needed to be done, but I couldn’t seem to manage it to my satisfaction. And it felt pivotal enough that I didn’t want to go forward without fixing it. That’s where I stopped and said, hey, self, what do we think about telling this story in first-person present-tense?  

I really do like that change. I think it works. But it may have started, in part, to get me away from Chapter Nine.

Earlier this week I caught up to Chapter Nine again. It was still difficult. My MC, Molly, is glimpsing the seriousness of Garolass politics. She’s just witnessed a brawl and a threat she had no business witnessing. She gets a verbal smackdown from the girlfriend of the boy she’s just been kissing. And then she finds out that her artsy new friends may not have scruples about killing people who get in their way. She doesn’t know who to trust. But she chooses to stay in Garolass and figure it out.

And I think I figured it out.

It’s better, anyway. Much.  

And now I’m going to ride this wave right into Chapter Ten.