So today was the day. The day I’ve kind of been working towards since Fall Semester started back in August. My thesis discussion, where I would discuss with my advisor and one or two other people about the finished product of the novel I’ve been working on.
Well, finished product is a bit of a misnomer. But you get the idea.
Early this morning I met in my advisor Manny’s office for the big meeting. My second reader for the discussion was Maura, a teacher I’ve taken classes with, whose company I enjoy, and who is a huge sci-fi enthusiast (can you see why I asked her to join us?). For about an hour and a half we sat and discussed Rose, how I got the idea for it (actually in one of Maura’s classes), how it grew in my head and became the novel I wanted to write for my thesis, and how all that went (you know the process of that from my many posts on the subject). We also discussed changes I could make for the third draft (which I will do, in time) and what they liked and disliked about the story.
I won’t do a transcript of the entire hour and a half, but I will go over the salient points. As you probably already know, Rose is about a young woman brought back from the dead by a man claiming to be her boyfriend and begins to turn into a plant-like creature (when Manny told the subject of my thesis to some of his writing friends, they were rather impressed by the originality of the idea). It’s about forty-nine thousand words as of the second draft, and still needs some work.
Maura and Manny definitely enjoyed the symbolism and thematic elements of the story, as well as how Rose’s character developed over the course of the story. However, there were some things that could be changed. The first third of the book or so could stand to have quite a few things changed around, including the portrayal of Rose’s amnesia and how she first interacts with the antagonist, the man who brought her back. They also thought that how certain revelations of both characters could be spaced out a bit more evenly and maybe change how the antagonist’s dad is characterized or used. There were some other elements that they touched upon, but I can’t mention them here because they would reveal too much. In any case, they’ve got my brain churning in all the best ways and when they’ve emailed me their notes I’ll take down some notes of my own and put the story away for the third draft.
In between this draft and the next though, I plan to finish a couple of short stories and then dive right back into editing Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City. Yes, I know I’m overdo for that one and it might take a little while longer to get it ready, but I promise you, I’ll get it done as fast as I can. And after that…well, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll work on the third draft of Rose. Maybe I’ll have enough material to do that rewrite of Laura Horn I’ve been meaning to work on. Or I’ll work on some short stories and maybe an entirely new project. Anything’s possible.
You know, it’s been quite the crazy journey for this story. It’s gone through so many changes, more than most of the stories I’ve had the pleasure of writing. And it’s journey is not over yet. No, it’s just at rest, waiting for the next transformation, the next polish. And what a polish it will be when it happens. I think that when the third draft is done, even if it’s not the final draft, Rose will definitely be much closer to publication than it is now.
In the meantime, I’ve got a paper to research and a few other things to do, so I’m going to get on that. You have a great rest of your day, my Followers of Fear. I know I will.
Rami Ungar The Writer 