I Put My Jigsaw Puzzle Together Wrong~Time to Quantum Leap

I'm sitting here eating a 1/2 of a roast beef sandwich with colby jack cheese and a smidge of mayo and a few chips before I start working on revisions and such. I'm in contemplation mode.

I did make my way to the end of my most recent novel last night on revisions, but I still need to read my research books before I do anything more to it. Today though my thoughts of revisions are leaning toward my first novel.

It's the one I had so much trouble writing...that took me 10 years or so to finish it. I hadn't really opened the file or given it serious thought since last October, until last night. Right off I noticed how glaringly BORING the beginning is. Maybe that's what caused me to have so much difficulty getting it written. As I scrolled down through the pages, I could see how slow it was, how long it took to get to any kind of conflict and a LOT of how I phrased things or wrote the sentences irritated me.

Can we all say in unison- MASSIVE REVISIONS & REWRITES!

I don't want to chuck the entire novel. It was my first one and it is still close to my heart and I want to do something with it because it isn't beyond saving necessarily, but I realize what a difference age has made in me. I've done minor revisions and such to it numerous times and don't recall how many "redrafts" that makes, but my perceptions are different now and my female MC is, well,...kind of whiny and spoilt.

Or at least it SOUNDS that way to me. She is a rather young character, and I want her to have insecurities, but I don't want her to be some horribly irritating character that readers will hate. Right now I'm not too fond of her incessant whining thoughts...Poor poor me...

Now see, there is good reason for her to be insecure in her relationship, uncertain and withdrawn, and she will grow and gain confidence and strength as the story goes. She has a lot of ghosts in her past that she must contend with, but in the end she will be the woman the male MC will deserve for his wife.

So here's what I'm thinking...I don't want to break the story apart or start all over, but I do think that if I move the first major conflict between the two MCs to the very first page...the first chapter and moved the other stuff down, it would help to justify the "whining" which I can work on later to tighten up and make less annoying, to me at least, and to readers if I ever get it published.

This is what I meant by the title of my blog....somewhere in my youth, I put my jigsaw puzzle together wrong. I tried to put pieces where they didn't go and it's jumbled. I can't stand that. The picture didn't turn out the way I imagined. There's a dark cloud in the center of the sunshine and it doesn't fit properly. I must fix that.

So I'm off to rearrange my puzzle. To put the pieces in the places they should be to create the whole panoramic view that I meant for it to be. Maybe my characters won't be what they were before, maybe they will be a little changed, but it will be for the best if I come storming into the lives they have now, the lives I gave them, and change things for the better.

I'm on a mission, a quantum leap of sorts....to go back in time, rewrite the history, put right what once went wrong and hope that this time around I will come home with a sense that all is as it should be. ;o)

{stepping into the Quantum Leap Accelorator....cue my vanish....}