"Why don't you come to me now, more like you are?"

Over the past day or so, I’ve put in a handful of hours into the second draft (not a lot, really — would that I could do more).

Because I wrote the first draft in longhand, working on the second draft has been an odd sort of process somewhere between rewriting, editing, and transcribing.

Which means that the parts that don’t work, really don’t work and they slow everything down. There are way too many of those.

The parts that work, the parts that run smooth . . . they go fairly fast. There’s a lot more of those, fortunately.

And then there are points where, as I’m working through things, I realize that I am just reading the story and not really rewriting, editing, or anything else.

I’m reading it. And I like it.

Those are good moments. Yesterday I was grinding through five or six pages of crap writing. Today I got to the point where some really clean and compelling moments happen.

I really love the Queen and the little girl. They’re quite a lot of fun to write and there’s a there’s so much life and emotion to them.

Love it. Love them.

Especially the Queen. But, in all honesty, I fell in love with her years ago when I first found her (unexpectedly) wandering through a play I was writing. It’s no surprise that, fourteen years later, she still has my heart. She’s that kind of woman.

The discoveries of writing the book might be over, but now I get to be the First Reader of the story. I hadn’t expected that, reading what I’d written outside of being the Writer.

And while there are parts that really don’t work (“yet” the Writer in me whispers) I am enjoying reading this strange thing I’ve put together. So far, it works pretty well.

Sleep now. More tomorrow.