Resurrecting Old Stories

Sometimes, all it takes to breathe new life into an old idea is to make it interesting to me. As I write more and more (and the writing flows more and more), it becomes apparent that I simply can't work on something that doesn't at least have some sort of emotional tug on my heart. If I don't care, then I don't write and the work languishes - sometimes for years.

This spring I have been writing like a banshee! I have written 50 pages in "The Heart of a Lie" since April 1st. The rough draft is galloping along at breakneck speed, considering it took me years to write the same amount in "Daniel's Garden." It's not fair to compare the two, since I was just learning about the 19th century, but still ... ! I'm extraordinarily pleased with my progress and have about 70% of the rough draft done.

So, as I come to the close of this new story, I'm perusing my works-in-progress to see what the next novel will be. And an older story I've had brewing in the works for a number of years has surfaced and called out my name: "Fields of Lavender."

It's an 1899 Edwardian tale about a 14-year-old snobby rich girl from Gilded Age New York City whose mouthiness is not to be borne by her family or their uppity circle, so she's packed up and sent to live on a farm in Maine, where she quickly gets her comeuppance and more. Think "Anne of Green Gables" with an even more sour Mary Lennox from "The Secret Garden."

I myself worked on a farm for several summers, so I used many of my own experiences for my heroine, Edy. Well, I created this story idea many years ago, when I was still in highschool. Now, at last I seem to have gotten the linchpin I needed to make this story soar. I was so excited about this new story twist I spent several hours this week drafting notes and fleshing out characters and the plot. I'm uber-pleased and am looking forward to adding scenes later this year.

Another older story of mine, "The Magic Pen," is the first full-length chapter book I ever wrote at the age of ten. I still have it, though it is sadly not something I could publish today. It's not reflective of my current style. But I have fished it out and am reworking it to make it more my style - adding a darker setting, more fleshed-out characters, a scarier villain, more symbolism, better theme integration, and setting it squarely in the 1880's instead of the modern era.

I have never thrown anything away that I've written creatively. (Old college papers and math tests don't count!). I keep it. I reread it from time to time. These old stories are like steadfast friends who have seen me through countless changes. The good ones have the potential to be encased in covers and sitting on a shelf next to "Daniel's Garden" or "The Heart of a Lie." But they may not have a deep emotional pull in their current form.

So, I rework them. I figure out how to care about them as much as I care about my grown-up stories. It's okay to update a story that I came up with when I was a child or a young teen. It's not okay to let them languish forever, unpublished in any form. Not every story idea I've had as been a good one.

But if solid bones are there, I'm more than willing to breathe life into them once more.