Whew!

I mentioned in a previous bit about my current project and its been a quick, quick, slow, quick start.

What I want to know is how do you know when something you've written is perfect?

My first draft sounded great. However, days passed and I began to build upon the foundations. The more I built, the more I thought I don't actually like this bit.

It was kind of like your dream house, only you've gone and made it out of cheese. It looks good, sounds good but after a few days it starts to smell!

Anyway, a second draft followed. Things changed, characters died before they had even been born. Unlucky.

Something still wasn't quite there. All I'd done was made it slightly nicer. Basically I'd fabreezed my cheese house. Not exactly a bad thing but pretty soon the cheese will strike back.

More tweaks, here and there led to a full rewrite and finally I'm happy with it...........for now.

Was all that time that went before a waste? It makes you wonder with the increasingly marketable commodity of director's cuts, making of books, isn't it time authors started sharing with their readers what the finished article might have been.

I believe we're too sneaky for that. There's no such thing as a bad idea...only an idea that needs to be saved for another day, another story...