I’m revising the second draft of my next book. It’s a cosy village mystery, set in an English village. (The one I grew up in.)
Rewriting gives me the chance to weigh the value of each word. It can be exhausting, as Inner Judge gives me a hard time.
It seems like everything that plays through my head runs through my fingertips and spills onto the blank page.
The process looks like this:
I read: ‘He pushed Wimsey’ [that’s the cat] ‘off the chair so he could sit down, pulled the phone towards him and dialled the number…’
Eurgh, says Inner Judge.
Inner Sage says, ‘Hey. We don’t make faces at it. We recognise it for the draft it is, and now is the time to clean up.’
‘He pushed Wimsey off the chair and dialled the number.’