Re-writing is a Slow Process

This past week has been a little crazy for me: work was busy (I work full time as a PA at a local hospital) and I just haven't been sleeping great. I try and write every day from 10pm to 12am-1am after work (I'm a night owl), but this week I found myself already tired at 10 or 11pm. So, the writing was slow and more challenging this week.

I am almost half-way done with the re-write of my novella, The In-Between (I restored its original title). So far, it's about 18,000 words (on the shorter side of a novella). This is the longest story I have written so far, and its my first experience with re-writing a story of this length. I'm finding the process extremely interesting. I am really honing in on the personalities of the characters and understanding if their actions throughout the story align with their character. I have had to make changes to some of the scenes within the story because I realized some of the things I had them doing wasn't realistic for them to do. But, the main elements of the story have stayed intact. Also, I am adding more details and depth to the setting and the inner lives of the characters. I think the story is a lot stronger from the re-write so far, but I'm surprised how it's almost more work to do the re-write than write the damn thing in the first place. (Maybe if I had a stronger 1st draft it would less work?...I dunno.)

What did you do last week?

• A few posts ago, I mentioned I was submitting my short story, The Baptism of Genesis Clary, to a couple magazines for hopeful publication. One of them got back to me (a rejection...but a nice rejection) and I haven't heard from the second magazine yet (keeping my fingers crossed).

• Yesterday, I attended a Book Club Review hosted by The Markaz Review for author Rania Hanna's The Jinn Daughter. It was fantastic! The host asked good questions and I'm impressed with how well Rania did speaking about her work. Here is the link to their Instagram.

• Yesterday, I also joined a writing critique group hosted by Flash Fiction Magazine. I can share my work with other writers for critiquing and also critique other writers' work. I want to get some experience with critique so that I can volunteer to be a "slush reader" for the magazine. The "slush reader" provides critique on writing submissions for contests and publication to the magazine and basically acts as the first "yay" or "nay" for the submission (think scouts for talent shows like American Idol before the person makes it on TV to be judged by the celebrity judges..aka the editors).

What are you doing this week?

• I'm am SO EXCITED for next Saturday, because I enrolled in my first (online) writing class. It's hosted by Flash Fiction Magazine and taught by Timons Esaias and its all about writing "The Second Draft". I thought the class would be fitting for me, because I am currently writing the second draft of my novella. The class is going to take place this upcoming Saturday and next Saturday, and afterwards I get send Timons 3,500 words of my story and have a one-on-one critique with him.