75% Freaking Done

As of tonight, I’ve got 21 chapters in my memoir, and I’ve got 5 stories to revisit and improve upon. This means I’m 75% done with this revision. That’s either incredibly close or impossibly far.

Tonight I rewrote my query letter to give some background on what motivated me to write the book. I was able to take a piece of my foreword, which came from a piece of this blog, and tighten it. I love re-purposing.

I also answered some questions readers had about my old darling, Bed Stories. It is easier to answer questions and expand on a topic than it is to restructure a piece from scratch. It was fun to add color.

I feel a bit guilty for going with the easy way out, but I don’t want to do my major rewriting in my Scrivener software manuscript draft. I want to try it in Word, see what happens and go from there.

I know you’re supposed to sacrifice your darlings as a writer, but really, why not indulge them instead?
Bed Stories is admittedly a lackadaisical, sideways piece. A bit shapeless, but a chapter I can’t bear to totally rewrite because I love all its weird bits and pieces. Having read it for a decade now, probably explains why I’m so attached to and slightly immobilized by it. Oh well, old loves die hard.