maybe it’s not?

I went for a walk with my friend, Karen (aka K.C. Dyer) today. 

“How’s the rewrite coming?“ she growled in this deep sexy Lauren Bacal esque voice.  Now, Karen’s regular voice is perfectly nice, but anyone who knows her would be surprised by my description.  Now, she never gets sick, so this new voice of hers, must be because she too watched the Dallas-Detroit game and screamed herself silly watching Dallas squeak out a win.  NOT.  I’ve never asked the hockey question of her, probably because the very idea of Karen partaking in the pleasures of hockey watching is ludicrous to the extreme. 

Tender-hearted, vegetarian, environmentally conscious, whose house is filled with rescued pets.  Nope, I don’t think she’s a hockey fanatic.

Although, as I typed the above sentence, the face of my friend Stephanie sprung to mind.  Every single description that I just typed about Karen would apply to Stephanie EXCEPT the hockey thing.  Stephanie loves Sidney Crosby almost as much as my husband does. 

Anyway, back to my story.  “How’s the rewrite coming?“ Karen growled. 

“Well, today was good,“ I said.  “I was able to get my pages pretty fast.  The thing is, I thought I was going to be able to use a lot more of the old manuscript, but I’m already at a little more than forty pages in and I’ve only used maybe a total of five sentences of the old draft.

“Meg,“ Karen said, stopping in her tracks.  “That’s not a rewrite.  That’s a whole new book.“

Hmm…I hadn’t thought of that.  I think she’s right.  It certainly feels like a new manuscript.  Everybody, everything is different.  The only thing that is the same is a few of the names and the place.  It’s quite an exciting idea actually.  I’m not doing a rewrite.  I’ve sh_t-canned that.  I’m in the middle (okay, maybe 1/5 of the way through) a brand new project.  Whoopee!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, May 15, 2008 in Chewing the Fat