Ramblings of an aspiring writer

I’m nearing the end of my current WiP. In the last couple weeks, the story has undergone some changes. First, I finally ditched my old working title, To Die For. Even on first choosing it, I knew it wouldn’t stick. Though it fits certain important aspects of the story, it was too generic. On the surface, it didn’t tell anything about the story or even give a hint at genre. The name had to go.

The path to the new, still imperfect, title was a strange one. The novel was very thoroughly plotted (or so I thought). When I started, I didn’t expect a lot of surprises. Then as I examined my plot points, I realized that certain things I’d thought made total sense were missing pieces. How was the character who swoops in at the end to aid my MC connected to the bigger picture?

So I spent some time really thinking about this pivotal character. She was important from the minute she came on the page, but I’d never considered the why of it. I was taking a shower (yes, many of my best ideas happen there) when I had one of those moments when I would swear a little cartoon light bulb showed up over my head. As soon as the answer hit me, all these little pieces fell into place. Tiny niggling questions had answers!

I ran downstairs after my shower and probably annoyed every one of my friends who was online. I have a new title! I have answers! I have ideas for more stories in this world! I even have a series title! Every person I talked to that day must have had their finger poised over the button that would let them ignore me.

After my excitement waned a bit, I discovered that all these answers meant some big changes during revisions. Along with a lot of little ones. That deflated my joy a teensy bit.

Until last night.

As some of you know, I started knitting in the middle of November (and NaNoWriMo). A few days ago, I started my first project with cables — you know the pretty twisty things? It’s pretty, but for me, it is also really complicated. Last night I finally thought I was getting into the rhythm of it when I realized I had just screwed up an entire row (one of the cabling rows at that). I stared at that row for a long time, wondering if I could get away with leaving it. After all, it was just two stitches. Did I really want to tear out the whole row for two stitches? Especially with how bad I am at getting things back on the needle right?

So I stared and stared.

And then I ripped it out. It took me forever to get the previous stitches back on the needle right, but eventually I did and knitted the row properly. As I was re-stitching (and cursing at myself for screwing it up in the first place), I reminded myself that in the end it would look better. Then it hit me that those revisions I was dreading weren’t any harder than re-doing that row. Sure, they would take longer, but they served the same purpose — making the story better and stronger, and yes, prettier.

My faith in the story is renewed, along with my faith in myself. Today I said a lot more whens than ifs. What more can one ask from a mistake?