As I’ve mentioned before, stories come to me from the opening lines and pretty much unravel from there, staying for the most part intact through all the rewrites and edits. But this time, trouble is brewing.
It’s just not quite right; not as good as it could be. Even the second sentence doesn’t grab and settle as it should. It is very long and that’s okay with me, but to get away with this it has to be really, really good, and though it looked that way yesterday, today it just looks long.
And there I sit.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Just about everything I write is like that. I think it’s okay when I first write it but then I discover a few days later when I re-read it that it is too long, too loose, and so unwilling to be condensed — almost as if it had a mind of its own.
But I seldom see that happening here. I have confidence ‘the fix’ will come. Probably has already. Or, perhaps you’re being too hard on yourself today and tomorrow the flaws you think are there will have flown as you mentioned in an earlier post.
I think one of the most difficult things is being able to read the likes and dislikes of a reading-audience. That is a virtual floaty thing if ever there was one.