Return of the One-Pass Revision

After much thinking and banging my head against the wall, I’ve decided to do a One-Pass Revision on Pirouette the Third.  There are still issues, and it needs an edit, and the One-Pass combines the two and was pretty helpful the first go-around.  No tweaky pass this time.  I’d like to dive in and see what I can do.  I’m also going to modify it slightly to include some of the methods in Holly Lisle’s HTRYN.  Particularly the notecarding aspect of it.  Another thing I’ll need to nail down is the main and secondary character arcs to better solidify things in my head.  I’m not sure it works quite right in this draft.  And a new blurb.

I might even try to start this while on vacation.  Thank you, Inner Slave Driver. 

As for other projects, Broken  is coming along.  It’s around 8k right now, and my muse dropped a HUGE bomb on me a few days ago about Claire.  Still puzzling that one out.  Also pantsing it almost completely, and I’m enjoying it.

With Flamebound, I’m up to lesson 8 on the HTRYN.  I also have some good ideas for the rewrite/revision/expansion.  Whatever it happens to end up being.

So with less than 2 days to go before vacation, I have A Plan.  This is a good thing.  Because for the past week or so I’ve been freaking out and mentally flailing over WHAT to do with Pirouette the Third.  Edit?  Revise?  Rewrite for the 4th time?  I’ve gotten some feedback and some of it leads me to think that I don’t — or shouldn’t — do another rewrite.  And I also have some mixed reviews on two versions of the first scene, which I need to also puzzle out.  Lots of work ahead, but it’ll be worth it.

Where art thou, Alisia?

Even though my muse was totally against returning to Pirouette the Third this soon (she says she’s not ready yet), I wrote a rough scene that may become the new opening scene.  It does everything I need it to, sets up what she’s doing, and  (I hope) doesn’t infodump alot but contains little hooks. 

But one essential thing was barely there: Alisia’s kick-ass voice.  This is the one thing that I always got compliments on (well, barring one) and I feel it’s one of the strongest parts of the book.  Alisia is the mistress of snark.  She’s prickly and outspoken and sarcastic.  And so much fun to write.  Draft 1 was such a joy to write, because she was so there on the page and it really came through.  Second draft, still there mostly.  Third, yeah.  This scenelet?  Barely there.  What the heck happened?

Too damned much distance.  It’s diluting her voice in my head, making it weaker.  I think it could be the sheer volume of stuff I’ve been working on, and typically, voices don’t merge at all.  Like, I could never write Amara the way I write Alisia, even if I’m doing both at once.  It just wouldn’t happen.  However, I suspect that being in another character’s head for an extended period (and this goes for Flamebound, too, as I’ve been reading the manuscript constantly for the revision) weakens the others’ voices.  With Amara, it’s not so bad.  But Alisia, who’s strong and needs to be bigger than life inside my head, it’s a bit of a problem.  Luckily, I can add all that in subsequent drafts, but dang.  I never believed that I ‘d ever have problems with Alisia.  But apparently, there’s a first time for everything.

I might need to write a journal entry or fictitious conversation just to bring myself up to speed.  My brain is weird sometimes.

I think 3 projects at once is about my limit.  They’re all different — one’s in revision, one’s in an edit of sorts, and the other is in draft — no confusion there, but apparently there is a limit to my brain’s abilities to handle all the stuff for each project.  And I seem to be going at snail’s pace, but that’s to be expected.

The plan for my vacay (in two weeks!) is to work on Broken mostly, but if the urge moves me, I might work on Pirouette the Third. Actually, I’m going to rename it Pirouette Tweaky Pass because it’s not a new draft and it’s not exactly an edit or revision.  I’m just tweaking stuff.  Anyhoo, I’ll work on that if I feel the urge, but it’s okay if I don’t.  The Inner Slave Driver isn’t happy with this arrangement, but as I said, my muse is firm on the whole “I’m not ready” thing for the Pirouette Tweaky Pass yet.  But hey, we’ll see.  Maybe she’ll surprise me.  Lots of surprises lately.