Magnitude 7.0

When I was a teenager, I visited my father in Los Angeles on a regular basis. I was present for three earthquakes, ranging from 4.2 to a 6.0 in magnitude. I slept through every single one, only to be awoken after the fact by my father rushing headlong into my room.

"Are you all right?"

"Um, what?" I'd stumble out of bed, rubbing my bleary eyes and squinting at him. "I was all right until you woke me up, Dad. And why did you knock the posters off my wall?"

I don't remember those three earthquakes, but I remember the aftermath: pictures off-kilter; tchotchkes tumbled to the floor; and the bed just a little right of its original spot.

My (still unnamed) novel experienced an earthquake this weekend, and now my scenes are all off-kilter, scattered on the floor, and just right of where I put them.

The current WIP is fantasy, and fantasy (almost inevitably) involves a magical conceit of some kind. My original magical conceit was fairly hum-drum, driven around the block quite a few times before by many authors before me. My story is solid, the character development strong, but the magic itself was not compelling. A revelation came this weekend -- that elusive, compelling tweak to my magical conceit -- and it's an earth-shattering change. It'll require a re-conception of many scenes, especially the action sequences.

I'm excited and nervous about these changes. They will require me to rewrite words originally put to paper more than two years ago, but my imagination is revived and firing on all cylinders. I'm excited about finding new place for my literary tchotchkes and pictures; I'm thrilled that they will never rest in their same well-worn places again. This is good change.

Also ... I'm absolutely back to step one in terms of editing. Actually, I'm at step zero. I have to rework this manuscript from the ground up before I can begin to finesse it into fighting shape again. So round ... four? five? I've lost track ... of this editing process is going to be much deeper than fixing diction and sentence structure. It's going to be a doozy. 

In the meantime, I'm neck-deep in research. I won't give away the tweak, but here's a clue: the last page I bookmarked. Are you psyched, Dear Reader? I'm psyched!

If that wasn't enough to get your interest and excitement piqued, then here's your consolation prize.