Rewriting the Novel: This is What Happens When you Finish a Draft of a Novel

I am giving the novel a rest until Christmas. Still, I woke up this morning hashing out a scene in my mind: a scene in which our heroine scrabbles though some nuclear waste in a mine that is on the outskirts of her depression-era oil boom town.

My thoughts in order:

• I need to revise that scene so there is more “show” and less “tell.”
• Is that scene before or after the scene where she’s sick?
• Is she sick from radiation poisoning while she’s rappelling down the side of the church?
• It’s so weird that I don’t remember what section that scene is in.
• Did I delete that scene in some early revision? I need to check my synopsis.
• Why is there nuclear waste in 1931? That’s an anachronism. I might need to take that scene out entirely.

That was followed a full five minutes later by, “Why am I convinced there’s a nuclear radiation scene in my book?” And then I fully woke up.

I think it took so long because my imagined description of the wooden bins in the mine where the radioactive waste is stored was so compelling. I could see them, I could see her scrabbling away.

I blame the two obvious catalysts: 1) I have gone several full days without thinking, “I should be working on the book,” and 2) clearly Kiss Me Deadly and its incongruous radiation made a great impression on me.