ROUND TWO

This past week was the first week of summer school. True to form, I spent the forty-five to fifty minutes before class begins at the keyboard again; in this case, working on the second draft of School Spirit. I was also lucky enough to bring home roughly fifty pages each night last week and red pencil them at the kitchen table (sometimes, when time permitted, giving them a few go rounds), so that I could return in the morning ready to edit. On great nights, I typed up the new stuff and e-mailed it to myself, so all I had to do was cut and paste in the morning and then was able to edit even more and get even further in the draft.

Very exciting stuff.

Revision is a very interesting process to me and, in truth and, typically, I enjoy it more than the actual composition. What I always say is that writers are like sculptors in that they take a block of clay (for writers, the rough draft) and carve out something that looks like art. The only difference, I've always pointed out, is that, unlike sculptors, writers have to start by creating their own block of clay (the rough draft).

Carving away at that block of clay, for me, meant refiguring the first fifty pages. Fifty pages is a good unit for a number of reasons. Fifty is a nice round number, for starters, but it is also the opening of your book (which should be flawless) and is frequently is the section that agents ask for as a partial. Consequently, getting the first fifty into fighting shape is critically important.

Here's how it went for me: a scene that I wrote two weeks into the process--give or take--and was situated in the middle of chapter three, was moved to the beginning and became my opening scene. The opening scene became the beginning of chapter two, and a scene with the protagonist's family that appeared in chapter four was surgically altered and moved to the end of chapter two. And so on.

At this point, chapter one alone has gone through at least fifteen separate drafts and I've used a ton of toner and paper both at school and at home trying to polish the first six pages to a high sheen. First, to make certain it's good writing and second to insure that it will work as the opening (more on that later).

The bottom line is that this process has gone much faster and more smoothly than I ever could have anticipated, due in part to the time I had to work at home. I should actually be finished with the second draft early next week. One more quick pass to tighten up some time line issues and I'll be in the market for Beta readers.

Come back here. I see you trying to sneak out the back. You can't get away that easily.