The Consequences of Speed Writing

Well, I finished the redinking of 'Blink' last night. The whole thing is a bloody mess of slashes and scribbles and my own brand of shorthand--big red question marks where I didn't know what the hell I was thinking, big red Rs for things that need rewording, big red Es for things that need expanding. In several spots I have written the word LAME, because to be honest, those passages are as lame as a three-legged dog. (Okay, bad choice of analogies because if you watch Animal Planet at all, you've seen three-legged dogs running around happy.) Let's just say, they're lame.

Now, you might think from reading the above that I'm worried. Not really. I knew I was going to have a mess when I was writing it. I knew this because I tried something different this time. I wrote the whole thing--straight through, no stopping, no editing, and no outline. The first third of the book took me about a month to complete, working at my usual pace. The final two-thirds took me a month working at breakneck speed. And now I'm facing the consequences of working that way.

I don't regret it. I wanted to see what I could do in a short timespan, and I succeeded. I wrote the first draft of a novel in just over 2 months. Almost 70K words worth. And all in all it's not bad. For all the lame passages, quite a bit of 'Blink' is awesome stuff, and even the lame passages just need reworking to make them awesome, too.

Still, the editing is going to take me a while. So, while I'm querying for two other books and writing a fourth, I'll be editing my brains out on this one. Wish me luck. ;o)