Amidst the library’s worth of rules I’ve set myself since embarking upon this project, amongst them is the rewrite later decree. The premise is simple; don’t start rewriting earlier chapters until you’ve had chance to actually complete draft one. Small paragraphs? Sure. Typos spotted at a glance? Go for it. A cheeky little chapter rename? Be my guest! But entire revisions to a whole portion of the novel? Get outta here with that noise.

I established this tenet for a decent reason; premature rewrites seem to be a potential project-killer for me. A few years back, I started writing a horror novel which I got quite far into. I got around 20,000 words, give or take, into this particular story. I was a proper proud little skipper over the whole ordeal. There I was writing a whole heap of words for a singular narrative! One afternoon, I decided to read over my work. I wanted to feel good about the volume of text I’d committed to a single narrative. Considering I’ve never written an entire novel before – assigning great volumes of my creative time to essays, short stories, TikTok reels and podcast episodes – this was a huge deal for me. I started to read back what I’d written, only to realise I hated it. The villain was as flat as my phone on a hike, the heroes were miserable to the point of osmosis, and the protagonists sulked about the place in a state of constant self-pity. What’s more is the story just seemed to change shape every several paragraphs. One minute it was a gothic horror, the next it was some Terminator-style cyberpunk homage.

Maybe the sorrowful leads and genre bending style was a winning recipe in disguise. Whether or not that was the case didn’t matter. At the time, I hated the darn thing to the point of disgust. So off I went, typing away to try and fix the ills of my dodgy plot and its despairing heroes. I buckled down, re-tweaking like my dream career depended on it. I picked gothic horror as the primary genre and set myself the task of gutting all the Cameron-inspired cyborg stuff.

I spent weeks ripping those 20,000 words to pieces. Like a PC technician sprucing up an antiquated gaming rig, I pulled out the inners and jazzed it to no end. I did this about three or four more times, forever finding new ways to grow frustrated with what I’d produced. When I fixed the genre shifting and sad-protagonists, I wasn’t happy with the themes. When I sorted all that out, I got huffy about the pacing.

Anyhow, to get to the point, I couldn’t get past this portion of the novel. I just kept going back, convinced that the rest of the story simply wouldn’t work until that first bit was charming the socks off of me. In the end, I scrapped the book, allowing it to gather dust like my other various tv projects and novel attempts.

Therefore, this time around, I have told myself not to get bogged down in the rewrites at this time. The key is to get that first draft done. Once I have a completed story in front of me, then I can start tweaking it to my liking. Even if there’s trillion typos and 54 abstract sub-genres polluting the thing, stick with it. Just get the tale out on the page. The fixing can come later.

I shan’t fib, I’m finding that really tough this evening. It all started when I was minding my own business, buying cat food from Tesco. There I was, milling about the aisles whilst trying to work out what I needed to get sorted before retiring for the evening, when a thought wormed its way into my head;

Chapter one needs to be more grounded.

The thought was as true as the sky is blue. My opening chapter – the one I’d written with minimal planning – was far too conceptual for my liking. Quinn spending her debut days in a digital nursery? Midnight nanny’s appearing at her window to whisk her off into a digital history lesson? Magic classrooms made up of code? It was all hot nonsense. There was no reason for Quinn and her classmates to be perched in front of a projector if they were inside a realm where the information could be just downloaded into their brains. The nanny character completely contradicted the need to deliver knowledge in such an antiquated fashion.

Furthermore, the aim was to introduce Quinn into reality in the most authentic way possible. I wanted her to marvel at the woodlands and the birds, like a genius child amazed she now belonged to a universe. It seems a little counterintuitive to try and establish a character in love with the physical world by having her wander around a virtual landscape during the opening block.

Quinn needs to begin her journey in the physical world. This is about a robot born into a callous Britain. Having that story begin in a total different reality made about as much sense as an instruction manual for putting on flip flops. There’s simply no need!

Gosh, do I hate that opening chapter right now. All 5,500 stupid words of it. It makes me want to brew a pot of coffee and pour it over my computer. A tad dramatic of me, but it’s the next best thing in a world where physical copies aren’t available to chuck into a log fire. All I wanted to do was pay for my cat food, dash to my car, and return home to start everything from scratch. 5,500 words is nothing for someone who doesn’t know how to stop typing. I could hash a different assortment of them out in no time. I could have Quinn wake up in the real world, learn about her authoritarian world in a REAL classroom, and be content to crack on with chapter two before you know it.

Except that wasn’t the plan. I’ve promised myself to just jot down the changes and come back to it later. I can write the rest of the story as though chapter one was already set in the real world. I’ve only been working on this project for a couple of weeks now. I can’t be breaking my promises this early in the game?

Or can I? Is there any sense to me telling myself that I can and can’t do these things? Will trying again on chapter one really doom this project like all the other long form projects I’ve been working on? Is this just another excuse to try and explain why I haven’t seen my other works to the end? After all, there is almost certainly a larger underlying cause as to why I ditched my last project. Rewrites can’t be the only reason. I mean sure, it slowed the completion process down, but it wasn’t some traumatising event that caused me to run away from the project. Had i just carried on as normal, there may have been a chance I’d have simply stopped writing at word count 40,000 as opposed to 20,000.

Be as that may, instinct suggests this is a rule that’s worth sticking to. Just keep marching forward. I can’t afford to delay any further. Kicking the can down the road seems to be a recurring theme with me. Delay the plot outline, delay the completion of chapter one, and now delay the starting of chapter two. Instead of figuring out how my story is going to flow and function, I’m agonising over thoughts of how I can improve the opening 5,500 words. Whatever the changes I make to this segment, be it a digital or physical setting, isn’t going to change the other all portion of the story. Chapter two will still function in more or less the same way as it always would have done.

The rewrites can wait. Or at least they should wait. I can’t make any promises, although I’ll try my darnest not to give in.

Keep moving forward. That’s what I need to do right now.