The Extrahuman Union

Dear first draft,

Okay. Where the heck did you even come from? You were supposed to be the fun book, the “I need a break from writing the big important OMG has-meanings-and-themes-and-everything book,” my pacer car, my racetrack pony who walks with the cool book during the post parade. I never thought I’d even finish you, much less finish you first.

And now look. Suddenly, a few weeks ago, I hit the completely arbitrary line of 50K words on you, figured out your plot, and then you ate my life. I spent the last week in a fog with your characters, thinking up ways to make them do cool stuff and get to the end of the story. Which I did. Oh yes.

You have terrible writing, especially at the end. Some of the characters are cardboard cutouts with signs hanging around their necks reading “IOU 1(one) personality/soul.” There are a few points where I actually wrote [ADD PLOT HERE]. I think I got all of those but I’m not sure. I’d have to go back and check, and I don’t want to. It’s scary in there.

Read the rest of this entry »