I had to take a little break from feverishly writing the last few chapters of TotTP (aka tater tot) because I gave myself the PEM sick (thank you CFS!) but I spent some time during those rest days reading all of what I've written so far and I have come to understand some things...
Mainly, that this mfer never needed less words (or if it did, it needed like... significantly less words. Like short story length, not novella length.) It does in fact need many more words, I think, in order for it to work the way I want it to.
See, now that I've got the meat of the story (or maybe more accurately, the bones) all laid out and I'm coming to the end, I've had to start thinking about themes. I don't often do a lot of that thinking before I start writing, because otherwise (ime) it tends to feel a bit forced and hollow; instead I like to let the themes fruit on their own from the substrate of the rough draft and my subconscious.
And now that I'm here at the end of the first draft, with all this thematic fungus cropping up all over the place, I've realized that this story needs a lot more worldbuilding and detail in order for those themes to land.
So I think the next draft is gonna be less editing, and more re-writing. I think it's gonna be like 10,000 words longer.
And even though that's a bit daunting, I'm actually looking forward to it, because I can see very clearly what needs to be done, and what I will have once that work is finished.
I think I'm gonna be pretty proud of this one when that time comes.
