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Now that I’m elbows deep in the second draft of my novel, I realize something: Writing the first draft was a piece of cake.

Rewriting is more like a bowl of oatmeal. It isn’t too bad, but it’s definitely not cake.

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The better metaphor for rewriting is that the first draft is like a messy closet. You know, the closet where you just throw anything and everything that comes your way. The one that is full to the bursting point, threatening to explode when you open it.

The first draft is messy as all get-out, as it should be.

The second draft is all about winnowing—it’s time for simplifying and minimizing.

It’s time to start asking questions. Time to use your most discerning eye. Time to take that mess out into the light and see what suits you. There will be things you want to keep even though you know they have no place. There will be lines and words you are sentimental about—I find the most difficult parts to delete are the ones I wrote first (some of them before I even knew I was writing a novel)—and this is unsurprisingly like how difficult it is to get rid of baby shoes or the first dress you ever bought yourself that no longer fits or is in any way flattering.

Inspected closely, the items we own say a lot about us, who and what we’ve been. Sometimes, in order to grow, those old items need to go. Same thing happens during rewriting. Characters you thought were one way will shift and morph and come out in the end as something very different. In order to make it work, you might need to let go of liking a character and instead allow her to become who she is.

The items we own may give perspective into who we are, but they do not define us. And so it is with a story. Things are going to change in the story, not everything that was recorded the first time around will remain. The essential self of the story will remain. It might say That doesn’t fit me or I no longer need that but it will still be there after it’s been stripped down to its essence.

Actually, it’ll probably be better once all that extraneous stuff is gone.

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PS. I created a new author website for myself…so you can follow all the exciting news about my writing publications, should you feel so inspired.