Back to the drawing board...square one...whatever...

Sorry for the cliches in the blog title, but it's early, it's rainy and gloomy, and I haven't had nearly enough coffee yet to come up with something witty. 

Anyway, yesterday one of my readers, my cousin Cleen, asked me for more of my story.  I'd written about 20 pages since she'd last read it, so I went ahead and sent it over to her.  But with it I sent questions, asking her what she thought about certain things.  I also asked her what questions SHE had- what sort of stuff was nagging at her as she read?  What did SHE think was going to happen, what did she want to happen, what was she dying for answers to?  It was the first time I ever really asked a reader these types of questions, but I'm not going to lie, here- I needed input.  I was starting to feel confused myself, not sure where I was going with the story (I think I mentioned that before, too).  I needed someone else's perspective on it to re-spark my ideas.

And it worked.

After going back and forth over numerous emails, I had a major breakthrough.  Like, for reals.  I now know EXACTLY what Anna's motivation is, why she's haunting Riley.  The entire story was basically based on this haunting, but until yesterday, I honestly wasn't sure why the hell Anna was bugging Riley in the first place.  I knew she wanted him to find out how and why she died for real, but I was never certain why she did, in fact, die- or what Riley was supposed to learn from it.  Now I do. I still have a few details to figure out, but I know those will come as I write it.  I jotted down a ton of notes and ideas last night, and I can't wait to start implementing them into the story.

Which brings me to the conclusion that I cannot move forward with it until I make those revisions.  I mean, I'd always planned on re-writing the beginning a bit, starting it a little further along into the story, but I planned on going back and doing that when I was completely done writing it.  Now, however, I think I need to rewrite it sooner than later.  There are a few other things I need to add in or swap around, too. 

I'm not sure where these edits will leave me wordcount-wise.  But I know the changes will definitely help push the story along in the right direction.  So as annoying as it will be to sort of start over, I'm even more excited now about this story as a whole.  I think there will be some surprises and twists that people might not be expecting...

For now, though, I just need more coffee.