Forest for the trees

Well, I "worked" for an hour or a little more this morning, but the process of rewriting that I have been engaged in is suspended. I'm doing a major rethink of the story. Scary but necessary.

The month off--as with any writing--means I'm seeing it with fresh eyes. Right now I am better seeing the forest along with the trees. The hard part is that I don't like what I see. There is something very basic lacking in my story. I've known it all along. It pops into my consciousness occassionally. And now I'm able to grasp it better than I did before . . . hopefully well enough to resolve it.

So this morning I printed out my outline, laid it out on a table in front of me and started doing some basic brainstorming. Talking out loud to myself while I paced around the house. I came up with some possible solutions. They are incomplete and imperfect, but it was good progress for an hour of work, and hopefully it's enough to stew on that the rest of the solution will come to me soon.

Whenver that happens, it would mean some serious rewriting of the chapters I've already worked through. I don't like to think about that.