One of the hardest parts of redrafting is becoming immersed in the draft – again. When writing a long piece, I drown myself in the world of the story. The deeper into that world I sink, the further there is to come back. When I’m working intensely on a draft, spending days or weeks in the writing, I become moody and distracted, and I need to achieve a sense of holistic closure on that portion of the work to be able to push on with other stories or films or projects.
This is now my third draft of Riptide Heart. It’s increasingly surreal to revisit words I wrote more than a year ago. I find it easy enough to jump back into the island of Bancree, to pick up the voices and the story and return to characters I’d said my farewells to – but emotionally, it’s difficult to step in and out of writing at those same levels of intensity, and that makes redrafting something of a rollercoaster.
I think another few sessions should finish this third draft – hopefully by the start of next week. We’re getting closer to submitting the manuscript. I want to make Riptide as strong as possible, but the next novel is starting to sing to me, louder by the day.
Simon Sylvester 