Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Rewriting and adding...and it's 50,051 words

I went back through the Adam parts of A65 and found places to add in memories and expand on actions -- like when Adam is being made over by Orisi at Casey's behest, and how it's his first taste of real Hollywood chaos. That expanded by over 400 words by letting Orisi jump to even more extreme extremes and Adam having to work his way through it so he can get the book he's been sent for. But this also sets him up for a compliment from Patricia, Casey's mother, regarding his legs and ass. Something he's never had before.

He also refers to his brothers and sister a lot more and discusses how his mother got him into ballroom dancing as a way to get him to exercise and not sit in a chair all day reading a book, which segued into him talking about the amateur football team he belongs to (soccer) and sets up a moment in the bizarre party at Lando's where people are dancing to music no one can hear unless they are wearing a mask.

Before I knew it, I'd passed 50K and met the challenge. Barely. And I haven't gone half as far as I could with this story, yet. It's still swinging between romance and comedy and drama with a touch of existentialism. Not sure what that means, yet, but I do know it's going to be interesting, at least.

But the main thing is, I met the challenge and didn't have to cheat to make it work. I did that on one book -- The Golden Sea -- and it hurt no one but me...but it did not help in any way, either. I have yet to return to the book because it would be like starting from the beginning.

I'm tempted to go through and do another draft of the book; make it more solid and consistent and ready for the serious rewrites I'll be doing. I'm going to focus more on my style, this time, and do everything I can to make this as polished a tale as possible, so I want the structure to be solid.

A new theme that seems to be peeking through the wordage is Loneliness. Casey's lonely. Patricia's lonely. Gertrude is lonely. So is Adam, even if he doesn't know it. It comes together in many ways, and it makes the ending more bittersweet than the script version because of how things work out, but still hopeful.

So far.

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