At the Beginning, Again

I rewrote the first chapter of ATRS.  It was weird, because I haven't written in first person since finishing the first draft, and I haven't thought about Meg, the way she thinks, the way she behaves, very much since then.  It was a bit jarring to return to an old project, but also exhilarating. Rewriting will be quite different.  It's like getting to know an old friend all over again.  Familiar, yet unrecognizable.

The new version is better than the old, I think.  My writing has matured since then (it's amazing how going through 70,000 words can improve your style), so I hope it's better.  I cut out a horrible info dump and made the whole thing less graphic, since a lot of mothers complained about how they couldn't stomach it during the 1000 Words critique over on Authoress' blog.  I suppose, yes, it is YA, so I should tone it down.  Murder is never pretty, but murder of children is a billion times worse.  I was making myself sick reading it.

I also posted my fanfiction piece today and am rather irrationally proud of it.  I spent a lot of time re-splicing scenes and making it coherent as a storyline.  The whole theme changed, so it got a new title: "The Life and Times of Thalia, The Immortal."  Immortality is so fun to explore. I do a lot of fanfiction writing in present tense.  It's like chocolate.  I can't handle literary, existential writing for extended lengths (like in my novels), but one-shots make it palatable, so I go crazy with it.  

Donna Jo Napoli is the goddess of present tense and literary fiction.  Do you ever find after you've begun your commitment to writing (seriously) that rereading beloved books takes on a new significance?  I can't read anything without studying sentence structure, the placement of certain words, and how a story flows.  It's makes old books into new adventures.