Scribophile Critiques Again!

It has been silent for a while and in that time, I’ve been working on revising my first chapter. Revising your own work is not easily done. It requires patience and dedicating to get the work done.

However, the most difficult part of revising is processing the critique I’ve been given. Everyone has their own opinion on a piece and their own vision on how to change it. Deciding which critique to take to heart and which not, is what makes editing with feedback difficult.

One critique said that I should stop the first chapter about halfway and expand on the feelings (or lack of) of the main character. I made a first draft, but it wasn’t fitting with me. It didn’t feel right and it missed the story I wanted to tell. That’s why I left it for a few days to work on it again.

In the meantime, I’d purchased a little booklet to scribble in and make notes. During one of my many commutes to my internship, I worked in the little booklet and figured out how I wanted the story to go. Which feedback to include and which not. The same night, after coming back from the office, I worked on revising my chapter as I imagined and it looked much better. After a little more editing, the minor details primarily, I uploaded it again to Scribophile to see what other had to tell me.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my second chapter as well. It had to connect to the first chapter of course, and it was hard to decide how to progress and in which order. Which life events do I include in the story and which not. I managed to create a first draft for a second chapter as well yesterday and that chapter will be uploaded to Scribophile soon too.

In all, the writing is going decent. Progress is slow but I didn’t expect anything else for this project. Writing a memoir is not easily done, especially about multiple psychological disorders. It has to be done carefully to make the point come across adequately.