Working on the middle section of my story is not as fun as I told myself it would be while working on the first third. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I wrote the first draft of Life of a Suburban Unicorn, but the whole middle of the novel is operating on Elizabeth willingly submitting herself to the will of the villain…and she’s just not going to do that.
So here I am, picking at Chapter Nine with the same drudgery as I picked at the first third. I love the shiny new chapters so much better than the old ones, but I don’t love the slowness with which I have to write them. I can’t just slap on a quick band-aid and rush to the next scene. I learned this with my first novel.
It’s so frustrating. I can look back and see how nice what I’ve written before is, but than I look ahead and…and…some of what needs written isn’t even there. -.- What was I thinking writing this rough draft? It’s like swiss cheese when I wanted Mozarella.
A.M. Kuska's Blog 
Sep 09, 2010 @ 15:54:16
Patience will have its way and you will get there little by little. I admire your tenacity, Andrea. Thank you for sharing.
Sep 09, 2010 @ 17:37:42
It will unfold as you go, the holes fill in. Meanwhile, the Swiss has value, plays a role. Trust. 🙂
The feeling you described is absolutely the feeling.
Sep 10, 2010 @ 14:32:38
This is where the “commit flexibly” part of writing comes in handy. Think about what you want to have happen, and I doubt that you want your heroine to be such a pushover–unless she’s just fooling the badguy, making him feel complacent before she coshes him with the soup tureen. Put a note in the margin that says, “the part of the heroine is now being played by woman with cunning, courage, and determination” then continue on, writing the middle part as Mozarella as you want it to be. Revision is the place to make the front end good enough to support the novel you wind up writing.
PS: Do you know what a service you do by posting your challenges?
Sep 10, 2010 @ 16:06:59
Not really. I post up my problems so I get the fabulous advice you people give me and can happily dash off and fix the novel. >_>