Still totally trounced by the idea that I have to exist and make life things occur while the future of my ms (pretty sure it's not going to get accepted, but everyone keeps telling me to stay positive, so...here: :D) is up for grabs.
My current dilemma is this: when I don't have a home for my first ms (and thus am not sure whether it will retain its general sense of timing, characters, etc.), is it really intelligent to move on with a sequel? And then again, having just ended the first book, and with the characters so fresh in my mind, wouldn't it be reckless not to continue? Considering that I can't seem to focus on the essays I've started, I've chosen to keep going.
Still, I'm running into the same problems I hit against when I set out to write the sequel in the first place, those being that the concept is so firm in my mind, but the ways of getting there are very rough. I still have no earthly idea how my male protagonist would interact with the world I've stuck him in, and if the dilemmas I imagine he would face are real. That's a big confidence-killer. I've also changed my female protagonist's course enough that I need to reimagine her a bit in places, but that is easier. I just need to devote time to thinking through the problem.
The worst of it is that the draft I'm working with is garbage, and that is making me crazy. It all starts with the file itself, which I lost eons ago (okay, July 2014) when I fried my old laptop. I could have recovered the file, but because I had the whole thing printed out, when I went through it the second time about eight months ago, I just retyped - and heavily, heavily edited - the first four chapters (which, compared with the ms that's out, are not good enough). Now I remember why I didn't bother recovering the file: because it sucks. The draft one chapters that I have yet to retype are also heavy with eight-months-ago edits that now make no sense. I am filled with ire as I go through them and tack them on to the document with the four already-poorly-edited chapters. Though I want to just type the crap just as it is, I can't resist the urge to edit the stinking refuse as I retype it, which is taking me forever. It has already made me angry enough with myself that I am writing this blog post instead of doing real work. Already, I've accumulated tons of technical questions that I'll have to answer (and soon) on index cards, and I've started to slap on internal comments wherever I have a problem that I don't have the brain power to fix. The comments are heavy. The questions I can't answer are many. The work is going to be tough.
I had this sense last year at about the same time (season change; yellow and red and fire-orange leaves falling from the trees; temperature just beginning to dip) that I was excited for the winter, because it meant that I wouldn't have much of an option but to stay inside and work on my ms. Today, I had the same revelation, which made all the work seem somewhat less daunting (but in the interim, that confidence has dwindled). Still, I know that, when there is no alternative, (no deadlines imposed by upcoming trips, no gardens to plant or harvest, no leaves to rake) there is more room for working. And having all that time - three or four long, white months - to write, then shovel snow and think about writing, then write some more, makes this giant problem seem just a wee bit less imposing.
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