Starting Again

By M. C. Oliver

I wrote my first draft of Tilgi the June of 2025.

It felt awful.

I wrote rewrote the second draft in two or three weeks.

But the characters felt forced and unnatural. So I rewrote it. Again.

Nevertheless, even though the characters were more “real” I had lost motivation. I just wasn’t feeling it for those characters, and it wasn’t that it had lost its glossy shine. Thankfully, I recognized the feeling from a previous fanfiction project. I happened when I didn’t have an outline.

So, I began to make the outline for the third rewrite. But I was also tired of rewriting. I was done.

But I remembered when I prayed after I had finished the second draft. I had been praying to God and asked Him if should just give up and start another story. However, a word pressed itself into my mind. Publish. Wait, what? Publish? Publish. Then I told myself “Nah. I’ll just start another story and leave this behind.” Then I got that gut feeling that warns you “No! Don’t do that!” I would definitely guess that it was the Holy Spirit.

If God hadn’t told me to publish this story, I would never have gotten this far.

That’s where I am now. I’m starting again.

While I’m still working on an outline, I want something to mark even if I replace every word. So, I’m editing my 2nd draft and making the outline. I actually finished 9/28/25. Now I’m working on my chapter by chapter outline. But I’m trying something new. I’m not making every scene now; I’m just writing what points I need to hit first and allow the discover part of brain to fill in the rest.

We’ll see how this goes. I’m really excited for this story.

Thank you for reading!