It was somewhere in 2011 that I started to write what would be the first draft of book 2 at the behest of one of my friends. I spat the book out in about two months and found myself proud of my prolific ability.
Now, nearly 8 years later, I've written a draft that I feel is far superior to that original document.
OH HOLY CRAP. It's been 8 friggin' years since I first wrote book 2. Which means it's been 7 1/2 years since I've had any true forward motion with the story as a whole. Meaning that I am finally, after almost a decade, writing more comprehensible drafts of the story.
What is my writing process? Apparently spitting basic, paltry drafts out and then doing NOTHING for a good five years (or more). It will be a small miracle if I'm able to continue writing these books and produce something even remotely noteworthy.
I know that the current draft is about twenty chapters longer than the original draft. DON'T FREAK OUT. The original chapters were wicked long and quite frequently needed to be cut in half. I'm intrigued to see what the word count sits at in comparison to the first draft (we'll revisit that at a later date). As I wrapped up the last words of the book, I started to reminisce, remembering my old ThinkPad laptop provided by Houghton and how on those keys, I first "penned" the story as a general whole. I remember sitting on a plane as I wrote through the middle section of the book on my way to Tennessee to aid my brother in some computer work before heading back to school for my senior year. I remember late nights at my desk in the flat my friends and I shared where I was up until 3am most every night.
I remember excitedly messaging friends when I would finish a book, feeding off of their eagerness to read the next chapter of the story. It feels weird to be at a wholly different computer, one that has certainly had my fingers wildly smashing against the keys for a good 5 years on backstories and histories and world building. And now here I am wrapping up a rewrite to a second book that I'm actually fairly excited to start tearing into on the editing side. I'm excited to print it out tomorrow and grab the new set of highlighters and colored pens and start marking up the pages. Asking the questions of the story that are necessary to, Lord willing, produce something of merit.
And I'm not gonna hide it: I am really friggin' excited to start rewriting book 3.
That's been my sustaining force through trudging into book 2. I've wanted to rewrite book 3 for a while, because, well, quite a lot happens in that book, and quite a number of the scenes there have been playing on repeat in my brain for the last year. I had to get through book 2 though before I could start on book 3. And now that I'm there...
Honestly, I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself.