It’s National Novel Writing Month, and I’m rewriting a book. It’s never an easy process, and I’m at that point of wondering whether it’s going to have to happen again. On a first draft, I really write whatever comes to mind despite that outline, and it’s only when the words are down that I see what goes and what doesn’t.

Yes, I do the same thing with short stories. They’re just shorter.

My family took a long car ride today, and I had both my binders, both my notebooks, and my tablet for reference. It’s amazing the things that simply roll out of my memory for this book and the things that I think I ought to know but I have to look up every single time.

My writer’s group is taking a look at parts of it, and I find they love most of the characters I love, and they hate a few things that I’m sure need to happen, and all of us have to remind me often that it’s an ambitious project.

One of the best parts is my early-morning writing buddy. We write together every November, sometimes at what I would normally think of as an insane hour. We write across time zones and genres and anything else that might get in the way. It’s one of the best parts of November.

I’m excited to see what this book looks like after the rewrite, though. It’s more focused on where that conflict needs to go.

I have the quiet part of the evening to look through that zero draft to figure out what I’m going to rewrite tomorrow.