
I didn’t consider how much work was in store for me when I started this edit/polish. Not to say I thought it would be easy, but I was ready to jump in feet-first and charge ahead. At first it was extremely daunting. “This is gonna take forever!”
Fortunately, it got a little easier. Change this. Move this around. Words, phrases, chunks of scenes were being tossed aside. Doesn’t serve a purpose? Out it goes. Why is this scene even here? Why did I even write that? Is this fixable? Yikes! How can I rewrite this so it still fits? Could I introduce a character here, rather than 8 pages from now? All this and more over the past few days.
But it hasn’t all been stress and cartoony sweat drops.
Reading through the pages with a more critical eye has really helped me get a better idea of how to put a scene together. It’s getting easier to see what works and what doesn’t. Simply put, it comes down to “What’s the best way to get the point of the scene across?”
It’s also been surprising how I’ve become a bit more adept at figuring my way out of a progress-halting situation. Rather than fret and worry about how this is messing up my progress, something in my brain activates and helps me work my way through it.
I’m happy to say it hasn’t been as strenuous as I thought. Then I think about whether any agents, managers or producers will like it
Now THAT’S stressful.