I started my WIP over tonight. I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't do that, but sometimes you get far enough down the rabbit hole that you realize you've taken a wrong turn somewhere and you need to back up and start over. There were so many things that weren't gelling. Plot holes and threads that got dropped then picked up again or appeared out of thin air in the middle of the novel. Several characters whose entire personalities and backstories changed mid-novel because I realized 20,000 words in that something else worked better.
Plus, after reading Weronika Janczuk's article On Compactness for Write On Con, I realized that my story had absolutely no voice. I went back and re-wrote my opening in first person, and while I didn't love the first-person part, I liked the voice that emerged. And changing something as pervasive as the entire voice of a novel involves a massive rewrite. With all these changes that need to be made, I'm pretty sure starting over is actually the easiest way to go. And really, I was only 31,000 words in. At the rate I'm going, I can make that up in two or three weeks.
If I can keep up the rate I'm going. My stomach just squinched to remind me that I start teaching night classes this Monday. And my stomach just double-squinched to remind me that I still need to compile quite a few documents in preparation for my first class.
Also, my husband's computer just sprang to life and turned itself on. Why do these types of things always happen when I'm alone at night writing a supernatural thriller?
Tonight I wrote 1,911 words.
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