All writing is rewriting...
Just a sample of my process. The first few paragraphs of BOC's first draft, the one where the muse is telling me the story, the second, where I am actively practicing "writing".
Draft Two:
Chapter One
Died and Gone to Heaven
Never in my short life could I have imagined Los Angeles as we found it when we jumped through the wormhole in the winter of 2173. Gone were the crumbling skyscrapers and endless snaking freeways junked up with burned-out cars. Gone were the algae slimmed concrete rivers and the miles upon square miles of rotting housing tracts and decaying warehouse districts. Gone were the desperate and sick, homicidal and suicidal humans slowly suffocating to death. Instead, the land all around us pulsed with life. Rich with tall grasses swaying in ocean breezes, dotted with vernal ponds and seemingly endless wetlands–the natural conclusions of rivers flowing freely to the sea. To the north, what we had called the San Gabriel Mountains stood guard over the expansive valley, and to the east, the snowy San Jacinto’s pushed up proudly to kiss the clear blue sky. I remember the westerly wind roaring in my ears and when it paused to catch its breath, the song of a thousand birds took my breath away.
According to Einstein and Neils Bohr’s calculations, we were supposed to have arrived in the Copper age, and theoretically there should have been tens of thousands of other future people to make the jump with us, but only a handful did. I remember Father breaking down, sobs wrenching his body as he realized how many of his friends and colleagues hadn't made it, how many humans had perished despite all of his work and sacrifice to save them. And then there was Dorothy. Had she made it through the wormhole or had he finally found the love of his life only to lose her?
That first night, we slept huddled under a massive oak tree with Carmen and her two children, Oliver and Olivia. I remembered them from when we first arrived at the Freehand. They had been sleeping on the couches in the lobby and Carmen had flashed a big knife in warning when we had first entered. Then there was Tracy, an employee at the Freehand who had helped us find the collider in those last few moments. They had been the closest people, besides us, to the downtown collider when the wormhole had opened and Father speculated it was that proximity that had pulled them through with us. It gave him some hope for Evan, my uncle, who was with the Tarzana collider, his assistant George, who was with the collider at CalTech, his mentor Grace who was with the large hadron collider in Geneva, and Dorothy, who had gone to Beijing to find the colliders hidden there.
That first day had been spent in a cloud of disbelief, wonder and confusion as my father tried to explain what had happened. That they had all worked together to open a giant wormhole to the past in an effort to save what was left of humanity from suffocation in the future. It was hard to believe. It’s still hard for me to believe, and often it feels as if the future was just a bad dream–an apocalyptic nightmare we woke up from.
Draft One:
Chapter One
Died and Gone to Heaven
When we arrived in 2173 BC, we were met with fire and smoke and what I would come to learn was the smell of white sage and manzanita burning in the distance. According to my father's plans and Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein's calculations, we were supposed to have come through the wormhole during the Copper age but it seemed the calculations had been off. We’d been in Los Angeles in 2173 and there should have been tens of thousands of people to come through with us, but there were only a handful.
Never in my short life could I have imagined Earth as it was when we arrived. Truly, it was the Garden of Eden. Gone were the crumbling skyscrapers and endless snaking freeways junked up with burned-out cars. Gone were the concrete rivers and the miles upon square miles of rotting housing tracts and decayed warehouse districts. Instead, the sky was clear and blue and the land all around us was teeming with life. Everywhere tall grasses swayed in the ocean breeze. The land was dotted with vernal ponds and endless wetlands. To the north, what we had called the San Gabriel Mountains stood guard over the expansive valley, and the snow-capped San Jacinto mountains rose proudly, touching the sky in the east. Westwardly, the land stretched out wide to the sea and the whole of it was so full of life, it took my breath away. The wind roared in my ears and when it paused to catch its breath, the birdsong of hundreds, no thousands of birds, took its place.
I remember my father breaking down, sobs wrenching him as he took it all in. I didn't understand it at the time, but he was also in the throes of realizing how many of his friends and colleagues hadn't made it, and that he was nursing a broken heart.. He had found the love of his life and then lost her, trying to save the world from itself.
That first night, we slept huddled under a massive oak tree alongside a stream with Opal and her two children, Oliver and Olivia. They had been closest to the collider when we made the jump. There was also Tracy, who worked at the Freehand Hotel and who had helped us, in those last few moments, to find the collider. That first day had been spent in a cloud of disbelief, wonder and confusion as my father tried to explain what had happened. Explain that he, along with a handful of others, had opened a giant wormhole to the past in an effort to save what was left of humanity from suffocation in the future. It was hard to believe. It still seems to me as if it were all just a bad dream, an apocalyptic nightmare we woke up from.