Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

After some fits and starts, I am now officially embarked on the actual rewrite of Petra Released.  As confirmation, here’s Magic Meter:

Alert readers may remember that I had already done a revision of the first three chapters last year.  I’m revising those chapters again in the light of some feedback I’ve received.  I always knew they were too expository.  So I’m dumping a lot of the stuff intended to "catch up" readers who hadn’t read the first novel.  It wasn’t working, anyway.  We’ll try it this way and see what happens.

I’m working in some other stuff, too.  For example, my protagonist’s character arc in this novel was kinda flat.  I have a better handle on him now, I think.  I’m looking forward to rounding him out.

I also had an idea inspired by last week’s report.  If you’ll recall, I had noted that the plot line needing significant revision was entirely self-contained.  It occurred to me that I can actually skip over those chapters for now, and focus on them after I’ve gotten the rest of the novel fixed up.  This should give me a lot of momentum going into the heavier revisions, and will also give me more time to ruminate on those changes. 

So that’s the plan.  A bit of a departure for me, this; I usually write and revise the novel in order.  Stretching again.  It’s all good.

In writing-related news:

Air fare has dropped precipitously, so I booked my flight to Montreal for WorldCon.  And while I was at it, I bought my membership.  As a bonus, my passport came in the mail today–an mere ten days after I applied for it.  Well done, State Department.  Well done, indeed.

Tax guy came over last Saturday.  I thought 2008 was going to be my first year turning a profit at the writing, thanks to a couple of good-sized checks–but mileage to and from last year’s WorldCon and MileHiCon ended up being more than I had suspected.  <sigh>  Someday, I’ll get to pay taxes on my profits.  Someday . . .

And on that dreamy note, I leave you.

Spent the last week doing Hugo reading and making notes for the Petra Released rewrite, trying to come up with a game plan.  I ended up focusing mainly on a particular plot line, the one that I was seriously unhappy with.  I knew it was going to take a lot of work, but it’s going to be more substantial than even I realized.

See, in trying to answer some of the plot questions I had jotted for myself (How much does so-and-so know?  Why didn’t what’s-her-name do this or that?  Who is going to contact that other guy?  And so on.), I took a hard look at some key events at the end of Petra.  And I realized that those events absolutely dictated the answers to these questions.  What’s more, I had gotten almost all of them wrong in the first draft of Petra Released.

<smacks self in forehead>

I get to keep most of the characters.  The settings will stay mostly the same.  But just about everything else is getting radically rearranged.  It’s almost like I’m starting over with this plot line.

Not that this is a bad thing.  The book will be much better for it–eventually.  And it’s good to have solutions for these problems.  But a lot of this rework could have been avoided if I had paid closer attention in the first draft.  I think perhaps I was at the time too focused on other parts of the novel.  Maybe I’ve come up against the limits of what Jay Lake would call my "span of control."  At least for now.

What the hell.  Can’t make an omelet, and all that.

The good news is that this plot line is completely self-contained, so it won’t require any major restructuring of the rest of the novel.  Which, by the way, has plenty of other issues, but those all look minor by comparison.

I plan to finish up my notes and get into the rewrite proper this week.  With any luck, Magic Meter will be back soon.  I know you’re all excited.

No updates for Write Club.

Bed now.

Finished the read-through of Petra Released.  I found myself pleasantly surprised by the climax, which featured some pretty cool stuff I had forgotten about.

And now the fun part begins.

I have a fair idea of the novel’s many flaws, and thoughts on fixing at least some of them.  But I need to have everything laid out before I dive into the rewrite proper.  That’s an ironic change of pace from the first draft, perhaps, but hey–this ain’t the first draft anymore, baby.  So that’s what’s on tap for the week ahead.

(That, and I have some Hugo- and Nebula-eligible stuff to read, in my copious spare time.)

I hope to get through this rewrite fairly quickly, but I don’t mind admitting that I’m apprehensive about it.  I fear getting hopelessly bogged down, thereby endangering my next novel project.  Nothing for it, I know, except to get it done.

One update for Write Club:  a tier one reject on a novel query.

Signing off . . .