The Work

I love the second draft. This is where the story really happens, it's where you have to make all the choices you didn't want to make in the first draft. All the fragments get stitched together, the dialogue filled in, where it becomes a novel. I can take my time, consider things, do that research I meant to do, axe the things that need axing and not feel terrible about it. (The answer to the question 'Do I really need this?' is almost invariably no).

Get in there, get your hands dirty, much around, rearrange things, make those pieces fit together, discover 'Oh! that's what this book is about', do The Work.

I just hope the second draft will tell me what I should call it.