In Celebration of Groundhog Day

Now that I'm healthier and back to a more normal schedule, I've begun the hard work of what is hopefully my last major round of novel editing before I start sending it out into the world. There is one (rather big) thing that I've been struggling with. The beginning. I don't think the current beginning sets the story up in the way it needs to be, nor do I think it does a good job of introducing Jezebel's character.

It's kind of a problem, as you might imagine.

Over the last few weeks I've been, quite casually, tinkering with the first three pages. Switching out one word for another, testing out the subtle twist I've been contemplating in Jezebel's story, wondering what I really need to do to make this start into what I want it to be.

So I've settled upon a little experiment. I've been contemplating it for awhile, but when I looked at my calendar today it became clear that now is the perfect time to begin. Saturday is Groundhog's Day.

In that spirit, every day this week, all seven of them, I will rewrite my first chapter. I won't look at any previous drafts. I'll simply start fresh, word by word, every day from now through Saturday. Next Sunday I'll read through all seven versions and see if there's any worth pursuing.

I really needed something to get me back into the rhythm of daily writing and I've needed some motivation to tackle this difficult part of the rewrite. This idea seems to do both for me and I'm rather excited to see what comes of it.