I've been down about the Firebird story lately. I've been in the part of the creative cycle where everything is awful and pointless. I've been unenthusiastic about it and even less enthusiastic about working on it.
So This week I sent my critique partner and best friend for life an e-mail asking for a pep talk, and then asking if she'd read some of what I have and tell me if it was worth salvaging. Her response was extremely helpful and reignited my excitement for this project.
First, she pointed out what she liked and what was working, which helped me because I could focus on the good aspects. Then she pointed out some things that weren't working, all of which were easy changes--such easy changes that I was pumped to go and change them.
Then there was the problem she pointed out without knowing she'd pointed it out. On page five she says, "oh, well, they can just do X to fix this." X being, of course, the secret climax. OOPS! That won't work. So I figured that she had answered my question of whether this was salvageable.
Then I got to thinking: this wouldn't work with a secret climax. X needed to be overt and discussed by everyone, which means conflict would have to come from elsewhere and characters' motivations would have to change. Like if So-and-so was pushing for this, and What's-his-face wants to do that...Oh wait, that will totally work.
So!
This requires another rewrite. My plan at this point is to spend the next two weeks planning out the rewrite in excruciating detail, just figuring out exactly what needs to happen. Then I'll be able to step back from it, write a first draft of another project in November, then come back to the Firebird story without losing my place. That's the plan.
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