Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Procrastination or healthy re-reading?

I've spent the last few sessions on my novel re-reading and tweaking. I have been given to understand, over the years, that this is procrastination. I should be forging boldly and messily forward, not caring whether what I write makes sense later. I've never been good at that. But I also feel like I need to understand what's happening so far, and tease out some of the implications so that I can expand on them. I worry about swerving irretrievably off course.

I must say that as of today I like my novel, better than I thought I would. However, the original main character has thus far been completely excised from the story. I have lots of material about him that I may not get to use...or will I? If I don't, it probably means leaving the story in a fictionalized version of Bakersfield, which I had previously intended the other and current main character to leave. Sadly, I know very little about Bakersfield, so this means a research trip. Also, maybe, I'll go to Trona.

No comments: