Plowed through a bit more paperwork last week, then figured I’d done quite enough stalling. So I dug out my next rewrite project—a novelette I drafted last year, titled “Just a Game.”
I wasn’t sure I would ever get back to this one. Even right after I finished the first draft, I knew it needed a lot of work. To be brutally honest, it sucked.
Yeah, I know we writers are the worst judges of our own work and all, but really, there are black holes that don’t suck as much as this story. So much so, in fact, that I considered just leaving it and moving on to something potentially more fruitful.
However, fate intervened, circumstances changed, and I found myself with occasion to at least take another look at it. So I opened the folder and started reading, thinking that perhaps a year’s worth of perspective would temper my dislike for thing.
Nope. It still sucks.
As I continue reading, I become more convinced that I might have to scrap this draft and redo the story from the ground up. That might sound harsh, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I had to almost completely rewrite “The Alternate History of Arthur Eisen,” for example. I threw out the entire first draft except for one scene, and pretty much rebuilt it from scratch. More recently, I got 500 words into the first draft of “Right Before Your Very Eyes,” tossed them, and started over. I managed to sell both of those stories, and am quite proud of them.
So hope for “Just a Game” remains, but the next draft will more than likely bear little resemblance to the current version.
Write Club update: A personalized bounce from a reprint antho. Response time, four days.
Back to the word mines . . .
