Burning It All Down: Starting From Scratch

Last week, I sat down to work on my latest novel, a project I’ve been excited about since its inception. Because of several circumstances in my life, I had taken a big step back from writing in the months leading up to starting this manuscript, so I used the month of November–National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)–to get back into the practice of writing. I pushed myself to write every day, often pushing myself beyond reasonable expectations, considering the break I had taken and that I was writing far outside of my comfort zone. But I pushed through and hit my goal of 50,000 words for the month, which only brought me to the halfway point of my novel.

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But this was a solid start. It was the push I needed to get off the ground, get words on the page, and remind myself of why I love writing, why I itch to create new worlds and tell new stories. After November ended, my writing slowed, thanks to illness, holidays, and the various distractions of life that come with December and a new year.

So when I finally opened my manuscript for the first time in a few weeks with fresh eyes, I saw 65,000 words of absolute slop. I hated every word I’d written. I didn’t gate the story’s foundation; I still thought the story itself was a winner, but how I presented it was just…boring.

Really–to get to the technical aspect of it all–I have only ever written young adult romance up to this point. It’s something I’m comfortable with. I’ve read so much young adult, between my time as a middle school teacher and my own natural inclination as a reader, that I just felt comfortable in this young adult sphere. I have seen success in the young adult world.

The book I’m writing right now is something closer to Southern Gothic, something veering into horror and the occult. It’s more Shirley Jackson than John Green. And you just can’t tell a story about dilapidated buildings and familial curses in the narrative style of a young adult romance.

My mechanics were broken and needed a total overhaul. So I did the unthinkable.

I overhauled. I scrapped all 65,000 words I’d already written and started from scratch. I shifted the narration. I changed points of view. I built an atmosphere that is entirely unlike any world I have built before.

It has been challenging, to say the least, but it has also been so rewarding. Watching this world come to life at my hand has reignited my passion for writing in a way that I didn’t realize I needed.

Sometimes, I guess, we all just need to burn it down. Start from scratch and give yourself a clean slate. Take the good parts and leave the rest. And don’t mourn the lost work because it was all just practice for something better.