Pushing Forward Slowly But Surely

It's Friday today and I just came back from a school introduction at Alex's elementary school, which he'll be joining starting on Monday. He's all excited and handles change very well as these things go, maybe because he has had to deal with changes all of his young life already. After all, Nancy and I did move to Holland to have him delivered back in 2005 and haven't stopped travelling since. He's quite the personality, introspectively academic and a silent artist in one moment and a goof-ball, who loves to tell jokes, sing and chase me around the kitchen table the next moment. I love that kid and can only hope I imbue Sally (of the same age) with the same number of dimensions that he exhibits. This does bring me to writing.

I finished chapter 15 yesterday, the part where Simon is in full fledged pursuit of his kidnapped baby sister with the help of his friends Alix and Maya. I have done some high-level as well as low-level redrafting (meaning plot as well as words) of late and it has gotten complicated at times to keep track of all the changes I'm making. Most important of the changes that I've omitted is a whole descriptive section of the story where Simon enters the magical fairy tale forest of Black Forest, Germany. He normally would've bumped into a woodsman and met Karl, the comic relief character of the book, but I've cut them both. No worries, Karl will appear later, but I felt his appearance was too soon to make sense. Instead I've expanded Sally's kidnapping from her point of view and Simon's emotional state in accepting the new reality he is in.

Once they enter the city it will mark a transition in redrafting as well as the story. These 15 chapters are additions/redrafts of the previous 10. As such after this Nancy's writing stops and mine is more up to date. Nancy stopped after writing 10 chapters so I no longer have to include juicy tidbits I thought were better than my own writing. And my old writing: it was pretty lame and I'd like to think that when I started writing from (old chapter) 11 onwards my writing really took off. It was smoother, more consistent and got me so caught up in it sometimes that I on occasion was afraid the pounding of my keyboard would lead to injury or at least wake up son and wife sleeping on the floor below.

There is still a lot that needs to be cut/edited/added, but I think I have a grip on the process and even though I am seriously behind schedule, I'm okay with that. It's my first book. How was I to know this process was as lengthy and intense as it is? I have learned one valuable lesson though, possibly for the next book: I will never just add more plot in the beginning, thinking I need more story to bulk up the page count. Man, was I seriously misguided when I did that for this book. I find myself cutting a lot, simply to be able to focus on the characterization and main story points (greed & fairy tales). Besides, with my approach towards the Simon & Sally story that everything is connected, I have a tendency to add more stuffing rather than take it out. I need to be like Alex in this respect: old pre-school is over. Out with the old. In with the new school. With no baggage and daring to start over fresh.