The second draft of Cherry Blossoms is slow-going as expected, though not entirely for the same reasons as possibly it could. I like to create a full biography for every character, creature, location and odd reference in every book and do so in the first re-write, counter-intuitive as it seems. It's mostly because I've found that if I create a story, create a few basic characters and then let the characters discover themselves as they tell how they are going to go about the story, I find far more interesting and personal characters in the end. My characters sometimes come out fully formed, and other times there is a flatness to them initially that they grow out of as the story progresses. It allows me to go into the second draft and add in the personalities I discovered in the first draft and change my bios accordingly. So while I'm only on page 54 of the rewrite, I've actually accrued far more pages of writing that just isn't in the book (for use in future rewrites).
There is a feeling of futility, particularly with this rewrite, that I'm smiling at. When I finished the first draft, the book was 211 pages. Here I am, 54 pages in and I have 226 pages total. I've already added 15 pages to the actual book, and I know I have at least 54 pages of bios written. This is 15 pages more after several changes and augmentations, and I haven't even gotten to the greater additions I plan to do. So while I look at my pages and see how far I'm going, the distance to the end keeps increasing. There's a certain pleasure to that in an odd sort of way. It makes the tedium of bio-writing tolerable.
David Barentine
www.wotps.com
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