The second draft of Forever is going well, albeit taking a little longer than expected.

Slow and careful wins the day…

One of the principle changes I made early on in the drafting process meant that I’ve had to do some shifting around to graft that change into the rest of the story and rewriting this has taken some time. That said,  I do think the book is better for the new material that is replacing chunks of the first draft and the story isn’t really changing just some of the detail for what I hope will be a more believable arc. I’ve also had to adjust the pacing a touch.

For me, the second draft always seems to involve the biggest changes because that’s the point where I know I’m going to show it to someone else and, essentially, where I switch from telling myself the story to telling someone else. It’s an ambivalent period where the thrill of making a line, paragraph or chapter really zing is counter-balanced by the sheer length of time it take to complete the whole draft.

A change is as good as a rest…

To keep my sanity intact, I have been knocking round some short stories that I hope to send off over the summer. There’s something satisfying about writing an entire story in a morning or afternoon and having it polished in a matter of days. Shorter stuff is still a good way of breaking up the slog of a longer project and a useful way of keeping your name out there.

One last push…

That said, I’m having a concentrated focus this month to try to finish the draft if I can. I need to move on. Once completed I will have a week off before starting the first draft of my next project while my test readers chow down on Forever.

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