Magic about mystery

In revising a book I self-published almost a decade ago, one story has me struggling.

This is normal. This is the way writing works.

We fantasize about the stream of consciousness writing, as if some god was dictating the material through your fingers. This does happen for me, and it might be happening now. I struggled to begin this piece, then I started writing. Once I did the words more or less appeared through my fingers. I don’t pretend this blog post to be great, by any means. It just demonstrates how first drafts can work, and work well.

The real magic happens in all the rewrites. At the end of one you can feel like you do when you travel a road you know well and a pothole was fixed. .

One of the stories I wrote for that book is taking some real thought and consideration, because it retells a family story and includes a lot of historical context.

After reading it again, then taking a brake and just wondering about it, I concluded my next path is to simplify. In the first version I laid out a mystery of Who? and Why?

For the story, one mystery is enough.

If you’re wondering, yes, I did a fair amount of rewriting of this blog post.