Log 2, 5, X: Riding the Wave

The new draft, which I've called "Dunn St"...well, it fucking rocks. Its a little piece of bile fermenting in a heat wave, a blast of hot air, a tasty synthesis of character, scene, history, motivation, psychology and any other ingredient that might be important but that I havn't noticed because I've been writing it in a trance and havn't stood back far enough to see it all.

I've written 350 words of a second draft tonight, after going through the first with a red pen (what was that about?) a highlighter (thats what I'm talking about!) and a black pen (add this). I then took out some key words and devoured a thesaurus, taking a page of notes on the first paragraph. I could spent hours going through a paragraph at a time, and am honing this skill. In the end I wrote, four paragraphs, extrapolated from the mood of the first and incorporating the information of the first drafts first three paragraphs. Same amount of words, tons more POW.

There's a lot in it - no filler. Everything fits snuggly; its claustrophobic and breathless, full of commas with a dearth of full stops. An imbroglio, everything a symbol of everything else.

What have I learnt? I should learn from previous drafts, and write something new. Yeah, redrafting is a good practice, and I couldn't avoid it if I tried, but when it comes to the next exercise i should abandon what I've written, taking the themes and the moods and the style if useful, but not the words.

NOT THE WORDS!

Not the words. The themes, the mood, the style, maybe even the action, but not the words.

I can't really explain why, except that the words become deader and deader. They need to sit and germinate for a while, a couple of weeks perhaps, before I approach them again in order to write a new piece and not just a new draft.

Anyway, I'm happy again. I feel I got to my essence with this one.