Thursday, August 06, 2009

Small Epiphany

I had a breakthough this morning, and while I'd love to be able to crow about it, it was actually too much of a d'oh! moment to warrant legitimate crowing.

In this YA I've been working on (for years!) I've really vacillated back and forth about how much my heroine should trust/suspect one of the other characters. I swear, I've written is six times, switching back and forth each time.

But today, after having not looked at the mss for about six weeks, it became embarrassingly clear: put the d@man vacillation on the page. Idiot. Gawd. It took me two years to figure that one out. Sometimes we really can't see the forest for the trees...

The good news is, the six weeks away from the mss have really helped bring things into focus. It's very clear what must stay and what must go in this current round of revisiting.

Of course, I am saving everything I cut, just in case I change my mind again...

3 comments:

Story Weaver said...

I can't possibly name all the times I found out something so "duh" obvious that i felt like slamming my head against a wall a couple of times.

Robin L said...

Yep, that's the feeling!

Katy Cooper said...

My favorite is when I have an amazing epiphany...and then I realize I had the same amazing epiphany last year.

Or I have an amazing epiphany and when I try to put it into words, I realize it's only something I've been hearing about for years.