I Found My Lady an Anthem

So, once upon a time in high school, I really liked Hilary Duff's music. (Still do, to be honest.) Since I was a poor high school student, I downloaded a bunch of her songs and burned a cd to listen to in my room while I got ready for school or did my homework and whatnot. Forever ago, when I was getting ready for a 6 hour drive to go visit my mom, I stuck this cd in my car so that I had good music that I knew and could sing to so that I could stay awake. (I am notorious for falling asleep on long drives.) Well, a few days ago I popped that cd back into the stereo of my car because there were no good songs on the radio, and as I'm listening to the tracks and singing along, this song comes on.

At first I'm not really paying attention to the lyrics, even though I know them by heart. I'm just singing along, grooving in my car. Then, towards the end, I start listening. Then I start the song over. And all of the sudden I realized, this song is exactly something that my main female character would say. The angsty music, the "What do you really want from me?" lyrics - it was absolutely perfect. I was in awe. So now I've been listening to this song constantly and it's given me an almost crystal clear scene in my head and after I post this, I'll be typing it up so that I don't lose it for when I get to that scene and I need it. It's given me a great insight to her character and it's been awesome to see how it's helping me change things up so that the characters feel more real.

So thank you to Hilary Duff - almost 10 years after I downloaded this song - for making music that still speaks to me. It's been inspiring, to say the least.

Why didn't you just say so in the first place?

So.

For the past week my main character from my main WIP has been talking to me. And not like "Oh look, I have excellent dialogue for you so you can continue writing" type talking. It's been "Well, if you can't figure it out on your own, I'll tell you" type talking. What did he help me figure out? Well, I'll tell you.

I've been writing him all wrong.

Well, not completely wrong. Just wrong for where I'm currently at. He's too nice, way too soon. And so there's not enough conflict between him and my female lead. So there was nothing left for me to do but end the book way before it was time to do so. I wasn't giving him enough depth and he was coming out shallow, so the rest of the story was too.

The fact that he's finally revealed what the hell the problem has been after all these weeks thrills me to no end. Because it means that now that I've had time to digest this development, I'm getting all kinds of new scenes running through my head.

But.

That also means I have to go back and rewrite a fair amount of the 50 pages I have sitting in my documents file on my computer.

Ugh.

Now, I could just move forward and write from where I am with this new knowledge in mind, but it actually changes A LOT of what's already happened, and I don't quite know where I am in the story anymore. So, for the next little while I'll be going through what I have, chapter by chapter, and rewriting what needs to be fixed right now and leaving the rest for edits later, so that I can continue with the story and finish it. Then I'll go back and fix everything else that isn't so important right this second.

While I don't relish this task, I don't see any other way to proceed. And I'm kind of excited to see how everything changes, because I really think this will make it better. I feel bad for Andrea and Aubery though. I'm going to be making them read my stuff all over again now, and not everything is going to be a glaring, obvious change.

They will hate me by the time I get to anything new. *sigh*

So, wish me luck as I let my characters take over and change the story as much as is required. Hopefully I don't end up going absolutely crazy in the meantime.

Until next time, happy writing!!