Junk. Trash. Garbage.

Why did I write it to begin with? 

(my reigning thought right now)

After working on French Club lessons for the majority of the day, I finished (yay!) and decided I would look into the questionable, mocking folder, "the monster."  I gave a background story on this folder about two years ago and then an update on its progress about a year ago.

Why on Earth did I take a look at it? It was hibernating nicely.  But now I get to be racked with self-mocking laughs and thoughts of "What persuaded me to write this?!"

The reason why I'm so critical of my story aka "the monster"?  I'm now looking at prose that I wrote nearly ten years ago. It hasn't been touched in ten years. It is awkward and flowery and unreal and hilarious!  I just read through what I wrote, highlight, and press delete (for those of you worried that these first versions are being lost forever, do not fear I have a folder entitled "old monster" where all of my original drafts from ten years ago are safely lodged).

Screen shot of the folder where my "monster" resides

I've just deleted about six pages of this junk that I wrote.  Even though I was somewhat hopeful a year ago that I could someday whip this story into good enough shape to get it published, I think that it's more of a revision exercise for me.  I look at it every year or two, practice how I can revise, and then don't look at it again.

So I guess what the bottom line of this rant on my poor manuscript is, is that I don't know if I have enough creative, good ideas in my head now, to change the flowery, unreal garbage I wrote ten years ago. I mean, the characters are still living in a castle in what I was deleting today. I haven't had a castle figure in my mind since ten years ago. Ten years ago I made the switch from "Let's pretend you can write fantasy" to "You're really a much better realistic fiction writer than a fantasy writer."  And here I am, weeding out castles and kings and queens from this realistic fiction story.  It is soooo painful.  I don't know if I can keep doing it.

But knowing me, I probably will. It is my revision exercise after all.