Thank you so much for all the kind words. It still blows me away that people read and like my books. *Blush*.

And, yeah, I do think there’s something to Smith’s method. i’m totally going to try it for my short stories. If anyone else gives it a go—do please report back.

Hope: The Norton Award won’t be announced till May. I’ll keep you posted. Honest!

And the whole throwing an entire first draft out scares the cats right out of me. Merciful Joseph! I can’t believe that actually happens!

PS – Justine, the bit with the cat in Magic or Madness – creepiest, scariest thing I’ve ever come across in literature. Creepier even than baby-Voldemort in Goblet of Fire.

Scares the crap out of me, though. I don’t know how this girl does it, unless she writes really fast.

I shudder at the thought.

I still have the novel I was writing in 7th grade. (Bad. Sooo bad.) My best friend, also in 7th grade, threw out the novel she was writing, because she thought her sentence structure was immature. Duh. She was 13.

I about died when my hard drive crashed a couple of years ago. I only had two chapters of my novel, but bajillions of notes, and I practically held my breath for the few months it took to get what we needed to restore the data. The idea that it could be gone forever scared me to death.

“my computer got stolen last summer and I lost the new scary WIP novel that i was working on”
okay, now that is my worst nightmare.

footnotes kick arse. you are in the company of e. lockhart, after all. everyone should use footnotes.

I kind of like this idea, to tell the truth. I don’t think I’m going to do it—but it interests me. But then, I do a lot of changing between drafts one and two.

the closest i have come to doing this is with the book i’m working on right now. but i didn’t throw away a whole draft, only about 30,000 words. and i didn’t actually delete the file. i still have it, and if i want to refer to it, i will, although so far i haven’t.

doing this was extremely scary and so my hat goes off to cynthia for sheer courage.

Can you tell where I fall in this debate?

I do rewrite a lot but I rewrite constantly. (Or rather continuously.) As I move forward and get a different idea about something, I will go back and rearrange stuff to set up for it better. Technically I guess I’m in a first draft but some parts have been rewritten more than three or four times already. I’m more of an “evolving draft” type writer. By the time I get to the end, much of this book will no longer be even close to how it was when I first started writing.

I couldn’t delete it when I write “The End” as most of it will be in final draft form by then.

Plus I think I would pass out or something………

This gave me the strength to go on and start from scratch. I think that I learned that we are sometimes more married to the idea of what we wrote being better. Somehow it anchors us, but it could also weigh us down.

I think the draft I ended up writing with just the essence of the story was more solid.

I don’t know that i would purposely delete, but, I won’t be afraid again if i lose something or accidentally do.

I think it is courageous. Bravo, Cyn. (and thank you)

(lili goes and hides under her desk for a moment)

*shudders*

*checks that drafts 1, 2 and 3 of novel are still safe and sound in their electronic folder*

Yeah. I don’t want to do that.