Instead of 80 empty pages, I’m beginning round two of my short story with 72 pages and just over 19k words. I’m also starting with a list of changes I want to make. With the first draft, I don’t like to keep going back and rewriting as I go along, partly because it’s too much like taking two steps forward one step back but also because it can be confusing starting a day’s writing two chapters back from where you left off the day before. Even if I’ve decided on a fundamental change I still won’t go back and change it. I’ll make a note and then continue writing as if I had made that change and pick it up in the next draft. So that’s where I am now, picking up those changes as well as coming up with some new ones. Oh, and pretty much rewriting every word and sentence I’d written in draft one. What else could I possibly do on a Bank Holdiay Monday?!
AMANDA BROOKE Author 