The Prince's Quest Re-write

 This post will be a little short, but since it's Wednesday for writing... I want to talk about The Prince's Quest. If you've been following this blog for a while, you know this is the story I've been working since 2011. I've referred to it as 'my baby' and it's characters are my favorites. But I hit a slump after I completed the story.

 You see, I had written most of the book by hand, and I have that in a giant binder. I've transitioned to doing more writing by computer now, and the idea of typing up all that hard work... over 50,000 words of it, made me balk.

 It wasn't as if I was trying to be lazy. The fact was, in 2011, my writing was... undeveloped. I mean, it isn't perfect now, but then... It just wasn't ready. So I imagined sitting for hours, typing up that book and wanting to correct the entire time. I felt like it would take too long, and drain me for the story.

 So I put it off. This isn't something you should do. Putting things off accomplishes nothing. But I did. I focused on other projects, while continuing my torturous deciding.

 Finally, when I knew I had made my poor story wait long enough, I put the question to my friends over at Go Teen Writers. I asked them if I should just type up what I had, or start fresh, remembering the plot I had written. These two choices were the source of my anxiety.

 Much to my actual relief, they all encouraged me to re-write, but use the old work as a guide. I didn't have to throw it out, but I didn't have to type up all those thousands of words either. Once I had someone else's opinion of the matter, I felt a lot better.

 And I can tell you now, that it was the best decision I could have made. I am loving re-writing this story. Now that I have further insight into the story and characters than I did as a fifteen-year-old NaNoWriMo participant, I can really dig deep, and tell the story like I meant it to be told all along. I am so happy to be re-writing, and I may even be starting to enjoy it more than the first draft process.

 So thank you, to everyone at Go Teen Writers for encouraging me to continue, even when I felt like it was a heavy load. Thank you to my readers for wanting this story. And thank you God for giving it to me.

~ a rambling author