When I left the house yesterday afternoon at 12:30, I never thought I wouldn't be getting home until 1:30 this morning. My eyes are heavy and it’s after two, so I will be passing out shortly, but I feel like I owe it to myself, and whoever happens to read my blog, to state this revelation right now, even though I would probably write a better blog posting in the morning after some sleep. Anyway, here it goes. I know EXACTLY what I need to do to make Lives Lived the great novel it deserves to be. Of course, it didn’t just pop into my head and the trail that led to this necessary revelation took several twists and turns throughout the week. I haven’t posted in a few days and so much has happened I hardly know where to begin. The writing workshop has begun and Lives Lived is about to undergo a fairly drastic change. There is so much to tell!

I’m not going to reveal what I’m going to take out, because you haven’t read the novel, so you don’t care, but it’s a pretty significant change. I want to use the workshop I’m taking as a backdrop for rewriting sections of the novel. I want to restructure or rewrite about 40,000 words. It will change the novel but it won’t change the overarching ideas I want the world to consider.

My brain is teeming with ideas and techniques to make this a better story. Another issue is that I, Melanie Dawn Watson, has lived a few lives and left them behind and the one I lived when I started writing Lives Lived, is over and done. I will freely admit that I was once an incredibly angry, self-destructive, self-loathing, unpleasant person. I was still a good writer, even then, but my writing was bitter. Over time Lives Lived has become less bitter and more balanced. Now it's time to take the bitterness out all together and tell the story the way it should be told: In a balanced, even tone with all characters exhibiting good and bad traits, ideas and ways of life. The changes I plan on making will not make Lives Lived a completely different novel, but they will smooth out the rought edges. I'm exahusted. I will have to write more later.