Getting Started

It's been well over two years now since I first had this idea about a woman who slipped away from her wedding and fell into a world of spies and betrayal. Since then the story has morphed into something very different and, I think, much better. I have had the support of friends and especially my wife along the way.

To all of them I say thank you!

Writing the first draft was difficult. Getting various scenes to line up in a way that made a plot that went somewhere while coming to a satisfying conclusion took a lot out of me. There were times I was too emotionally spent to do much of anything.

I rewrote that draft a couple of times, with some scenes changing, others going away, and others coming out of nowhere.

Then I sent the text off to a few good friends and even got some of them back. I struggled with several suggestions and hoped I didn't tick them off with my responses to their responses. The help they gave was beyond value in getting to where I am.

After that was the start of the re-rewriting.

This process never really ends if you don't make it end. There's always the idea of "what if I did this?" and "why don't I do that?" It's possible to make a good story terrible by over-rewriting it. I had to hope I didn't do that, but I knew I had made some serious changes to my original story and I had gone pretty far from my original idea.

Someday I might explain what that original idea was and where it came from.

I thought the writing part was difficult. I was right.

I thought the rewriting part was more difficult. I was right about that, too.