On Rewriting
Last year, I went to the PNWA conference in September and pitched a work in progress (WIP) in its second draft. At Pitchfest, my table’s industry pro mentor Eliana West told us that writers never follow up on 90% of requests for pages at conferences. I was shocked. I would never let an opportunity like that slip through my fingers, I thought. I was thrilled to get requests for pages from all four agents that I pitched.
Then, in October, I went on a lovely vacation to Ireland with my spouse.
Also in October, I got knocked up. (I have since had my baby, we are in a bubble of familial bliss, etc. etc.)
And neither of those distractions is the reason I never followed up on my pitches.
There were two critical problems with my WIP, I realized in January. First, I had a protagonist problem; my hero didn’t make enough choices, didn’t have enough agency. I thought I needed another subplot, but I had already spent a year adding, adding, adding to my Saskatchewan-flat first draft, and I was tapped out. And second, my story no longer made sense in the increasingly bleak political climate.
Shortly before I pressed pause, I stumbled across this wonderful interview with Paul Simon about the writing of “You Can Call Me Al”. He describes the difference between inventing and discovering:
“Asked what the distinction was between discovery and invention, [Paul Simon] said, ‘You just have no idea that that’s a thought that you had; it surprises you; it can make me laugh or make me emotional. When it happens and I’m the audience and I react, I have faith in that because I’m already reacting. I don’t have to question it. I’ve already been the audience.’”
This interview helped me trust myself to pause. I knew my book wasn’t working. I worried about abandoning my characters; in a weird way, letting them down. But I knew I wasn’t ready to continue. I had been the audience, and I knew something was missing.
I was recently explaining this turn of events to, coincidentally, a writer I met at Eliana West’s Pitchfest table. Casey J. Melnick asked why I had given up on my story. I told him that my protagonist struggles with gender identity, but there was neither enough trans joy nor trans resistance in my story to make it feel meaningful in the current climate.
(Now, you may already see the solution to my problem, but recall that I am in the throes of sleep deprivation and baby snuggles. So it took me a few more days to figure out.)
This was supposed to be a blog post about putting down a project, and why it’s okay to press pause when you don’t know how to proceed. It was supposed to be about the new project I had started, one of two YA novel ideas I’ve been developing during morning pages. It was supposed to be about morning pages and how they’ve gotten me back into writing again, concocting short stories and participating in Writing Battle.
But instead, it’s about how morning pages ended a ten-month hiatus from my WIP.
During morning pages a few weeks ago, I had a throwaway idea melding trans joy and trans resistance together. I earmarked it for some unknown future project. And then that afternoon - because morning pages ignites my creativity for the whole day - I thought, why not put it in my WIP? I spent some time talking myself out of it, thinking it didn’t fit with my protagonist because they…*checks notes*…didn’t have that much agency. And thus I realized I could feed two birds with one scone.
I have now begun a significant overhaul of my novel. Here’s the advice I’m following in the rewrite:
1. Write what you want to read.
Because you will have to read it so, so many times during editing, as my friend Nicole pointed out during final drafts of her upcoming debut. (Psst! Keep an eye out for Inhale Exhale by Nicole MacPherson in 2026!)
But also, write what you want to write. Any scenes I’m dreading rewriting or revising are getting axed or heavily modified.
2. Kill your darlings.
The best part of the hiatus is that I’m no longer too close to the material. I’ve forgotten the reasons behind some inclusions, so if it’s not working, it’s gone.
3. Exploration before commitment.
I have a dozen ideas for changes, some that I’m sure of, others that may not work. I started this novel from an outline without exploring first; now, I’m trying to do it the other way around. I’m writing scenes before figuring out how they fit into the outline. If I’m lucky, I’ll discover something new.
“But if I make it up,” [Simon] continued, “knowing where it’s going, it’s not as much fun. It may be just as good, but it’s more fun to discover it.”
I hope to have more substantive updates soon, such as: what happens if you send pages to an agent two years late? Stay tuned!
