Making Progress

I scrapped my first draft of my novel earlier this month.  I had over 56,000 words written.  I know, I know, it was a crazy decision, and I've battled with it this entire month.

However, I am happy to report that I am currently well over 26,000 words.  That's right.  26,000 words in one month.  I know, it isn't much.  It certainly isn't anything I would have done back in November for NaNoWriMo (where we have 30 days to write 50,000 words).  But I am proud of these 26,000 words.  They were hard to write.  I had to fight for most of them.  But it will definitely be worth it.

Benefits to scrapping the original piece?  Well, for one thing, there are less characters in this second version.  Before, there were too many minor characters floating around, trying to tell their own story through my main character's point of view.  Not only did it get way too confusing, it was incredibly difficult to give everyone a voice.  Now, however, things are much nicer.  I'm also liking this plot a bit better.  For all intents and purposes it is the same plot, only with some minor changes.  For example, in the original novel, my main character was married.  That bothered me almost from the start.  Now, in this second version, the character is merely engaged. That opened up a whole new world of choices for my characters to make, and so far I have been happy with every choice they've made.

So, here's to hitting my 56,000 words shortly.  After all, my husband has convinced me to actually publish something, and I'm honestly kind of excited about that.