Going into hiding has been productive thus far. I wrote ten pages today, made several pages of notes about the new direction of my first book, put up a blog post for tomorrow (today as you're reading this) on the group romance blog I'm part of, and read an entire book on editing and revising. It's only ten o'clock, but I'm taking the unusual step of going to bed. Writing is such an emotionally and mentally draining process that a twelve hour day feels like a week, and I'm sure the caffeine crash I'm on isn't helping matters.
The challenge right now is that I have a fabulous, awesome idea for Malcolm and Amelia's story, one that fits with all I've learned about plot/structure/pacing but still feels true to their characters and the initial humor and tone of the book. However, if I pursue that idea, I can probably only use 25% of the current book (basically the sex scenes and the ending). Writing the other 75% in the next month seems rather unfeasible.
And yet...if I don't do it, if I scale back the rewrites and just tweak what I have rather than making wholesale changes, I will always regret it because I will know it's not my best attempt. So I'm going to press as hard as possible this week, and evaluate where I stand at the end of my hermitage. Hopefully I don't go crazy, particularly since I'm in what feels like an abandoned ghost town and I'm not sure anyone would notice or intervene in my craziness for awhile.
Okay, it's bedtime, and I shall sleep while hoping that my subconscious works out a plan for the next twenty pages. Goodnight!
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