Orientation Day

Yesterday I had my new student orientation at Columbia College. Unlike my experience with this sort of thing in the past, this orientation was mercifully lacking in cheesiness, and instead was fused with solid information about the school and my department in particular. To top it off, I won a $25 gift certificate for the school's bookstore.

An important part of the orientation was registration. I managed to snag all the classes I wanted and somehow shoved them into two days. Now I can work the other three days of the week and still have weekends to read, write, read, write, write, and sleep write. I could call all that writing/reading "homework," but that makes it sound less fun.

I now have a Columbia College student ID with a picture that actually turned out quite nicely. In fact, the only negative from today is an ongoing screw-up with my financial aid. (Who's surprised?) But I know all my paperwork is in order, so it's just a matter of beating those dolts over the head enough times until they fix their mistake.

Now only 46 more days until the start of the semester. Seems like forever.

Take this rewrite and shove it

I've started on the rewrite again (finally), but I'm not feeling too confident. I'd forgotten how much work I have ahead of me. The thing is such a mess. I don't know how I let that go on. I'm looking at a whole load of new material to insert and some major overhauling on much of what I have. I'm a mere 150 pages into this 511-page beast and I feel like I should scrap the next 350 pages and start over. Uh. No. That's not what I want, either.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I hate rewriting. I just can't stand it. This, more than anything else, may be the largest obstacle between me and publication. I want to write new stories. I do not--much as I like it--want to rehash this one. But it isn't just that. I feel so lost when I look at parts of this story. Plot holes stare vacuously at me, so wide I get washed with vertigo just looking at them. Names get muddled in my head. Ideas for fixes get tangled in the stories existing threads, pulling other parts out of whack. It all gets so frustrating that I freeze. And then, on top of it all, I realize I need to write new scenes that'll probably need rewriting themselves.

I better stop before I scream. Don't want to startle the neighbors.

Anyway, that's my rant for tonight. Rewriting sucks. I don't care what they say, there's nothing fun about it.

'Nuf said.