Re-Writes of Re-Writes

This will be the fourth time I've knuckled down to re-write the first chapter of my completed MS. Actually, 'completed'--as any writer who's tried their hand at such a thing as a novel will tell you--is not the right word. There's no such thing as complete, just degrees of incomplete.

So technically, right now I'm taking it down from the third degree of incomplete to the fourth.

This is how much I found in one casual sitting that needs immediate change.

Hey there, Chapter One. Fuck you, too! :-D

Those red marks are the things that have to change before I begin re-writing in earnest. This is only the pre-re-write, and it took me three hours.

It's not unusual. I gutted it the first two times. I may yet still do it once more. There's only a few things that you can take away from an experience like this as 'positive'.

1) The first chapter is the hardest. You could write it a thousand different ways and no one of them would be perfect.
2) Each time you do this, at least one or two things that legitimately and objectively did not work for the manuscript are gone. Eliminated. Forever cast in to the abyss. You will never be tortured by their inadequacy again, ever.
3)In a way, the hard part of the MS--the creative bit, where you have to be on the ball and come up with solid ideas--is done. You've build the sword, now you just need to sharpen it. It's not all that hard if you're even a little bit serious about making your story the best that it can be.

And now, it's 12:30am. That's another inextricable part of re-writing: late nights. I better get myself to bed before my 5:30am rise for work.

Then I'll come home, and make this chapter awesome. Even more awesome than it has ever been.

How exciting.