Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, when I still lived in Minneapolis, I used to write nearly perfect first drafts. Not perfect, but close enough that revisions went quickly and I rarely needed more than a week or two before it was ready to send to my editor.

Those days (sadly) seem to be gone.

When I wrote Wicked Obsession and had a lot revision work, I blamed it on not doing much writing after my mom died and trying to get back into it. I was out of practice, that's all. It appears, though, that this is my new normal because Wicked Intention is in rougher shape than Obsession was.

I'm trying to convince myself that the issues I'm having with Intention are because I'm telling the story in an unusual format, one I've never done before. When I say format, I don't mean what the page looks like, I mean how the story is structured. And no, I'm not going to mention what's different about it. It's not some unheard of structure, just something that's new to me. I'll leave it there.

But I'm not sure this story I'm telling myself is true. Is it the format I'm using to tell the story the issue or is this my new normal? I really hope it's not my new normal. I miss my clean first drafts so much, and if they return, I will never complain about how slow it is to write that way again. I promise. ;-)