Wednesday 25 September 2013

Gonna Need a Montage


The good news is, I’ve finished the first draft of a twenty-five-thousand-word novella and I’m pleased with how it’s shaping up.

The thing is, I love doing all the stuff you have to do to get to that point: the character creation, the historical research, the plot outline, the writing, etc. What I’m not so keen on is going back to my story and hacking it to pieces. In other words, I don’t like editing. I’m not saying it doesn’t have to be done—of course it does. It just hurts to go back and mess around with writing that I worked so hard on in the first place.

So this is where I wish I could fast-forward through time. I’d like to flip open my iPhone, select the miracle app called ‘montage’, enter the task that needs completing (i.e. edit novella from first draft to publishable quality) and hit ‘go’.

Immediately inspirational music would blast out and I would be propelled through time in a series of flashes, starting with me tearing my hair out over my MacBook and ending in me punching the air as I read through my final draft.

At that point, I’d fire up my synopsis and pitch letter montage…



(In case you're wondering, the title of this post comes from the montage song in the film Team America. Look it up on YouTube if you don't know what I'm talking about.)