Returning to an older project is an interesting experience. I haven’t had the chance to work on it much since I began my Master’s, although I did manage a bit of structural reorganisation earlier in the year. I have almost 15,000 words and an idea of how to develop the plot. I have notes for each chapter and each planned chapter, so I know where I want this to go. My challenge is this; I decided to dive in and write one of the chapters I haven’t yet written; a different POV to the bulk of the work so far, but one I intend to bring out as I write the rest of the project. In order to write today’s section, I needed to go and check some details from an earlier one, and in doing so I spotted how much my writing has improved since I got that first draft down, i.e., noticed my dodgy writing.
So, given how I am - at best - a quarter of the way into writing the plot of this first draft, do I finish the draft before I go back to smooth the earlier writing? I might need to re-read a lot when continuing as it has been so long that I have forgotten fine details and language I have used. When I carry out a read-through I tend to edit as I go, and this is not necessarily a can of worms I want to open until I have a finished draft.
The other option is that I admit defeat and edit what I have first, then go on and write the rest. That is not to say I will get the first 15,000 words submission ready, just get them to the standard that my first drafts tend to be now which is slightly better than they were two years ago.
So, I have a choice to make now: option a) start at the beginning with a read through and make changes as I go (not especially appealing), or option b) continue with the story, ignoring issues that arise when I go back to fact check my own work (a challenge for my pedantic, nit-picky nature).
Who said writing a novel was easy?