I wrote a 120K, then scrapped it, and now I'm starting over.

I'm back to square one. I'm not really sure how this place works, but with a little luck, some 3rd party karma will flow my way, and I'll succeed with this draft.<br>As explained in the subject, I wrote a 120K fantasy story, then scrapped it. I've been writing for about 10 years now, and this was the first thing I've written that I wasn't really happy with. Of course, that isn't to say it would have been impossible to fix, but the way I felt about it was this, that if someone offered me ONE MILLION DOLLARS to publish this thing just as it was, then I would have refused. I refuse to publish books that I'm not proud of. See, I'm not in this for money, so I don't really have to compromise on that, and uber rich people aside, I don't see the point in doing this if I'm not putting out my best work.<br>I shot that draft in the throat, dragged it out into the desert, and let it rot. I'm not really sure how I ended up there, but what follows is the general idea of how I got there.<br>I wrote my draft, and didn't like it. I went back and fixed a few things, but I still didn't like it. I went to work on it again and again and again, but the more I worked on it, the more I disliked it. Eventually, it became apparent that there was something wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It continued to get worse and worse, and slowly but surely, I came to the realization that it would be best to actually scrap the whole thing.<br>The problem was an idea I'd come up with, which I thought was clever, but would have been impossible to make work. The trouble began when, instead of taking it in the throat, I tried to make it work. That's really the key to how I ended up with a worthless book. The main problem with this idea was that no matter what I did, it made the plot absurd. I tried to make the absurdity funny, but the absurdity wasn't funny, and the jokes fell flat. So, I tried to tone down the absurdity, but that made the story inconsistent. I tried to make the story serious, but it was a bit too late for that, and it just ended up being maudlin and overly sentimental.<br>Eventually, I got completely fed up with it. I hated the thing, and it wasn't until I said those magic words, "it isn't worth it," that I was finally free to do something else.<br><br>After scrapping it, I didn't sit down and write a new outline right away, or do any actual planning. Instead, I did something different. I brainstormed. I jotted down every idea that came into my head, and I wrote them down in two places. I wrote them in my outline, and I wrote them in a separate "ideas" doc. That way, if I decided I didn't want them in my outline after all, I could cut them, and I would still have them in my "ideas" doc. After doing all that brainstorming, I probably came up with a hundred pages of ideas, only a few of which I actually used, and it took me a couple of weeks to do.<br>I then spent a few more days copying and pasting together my outline, and now I have this super long, hyper detailed outline that serves a structure for the entire story. I'm probably going to be writing this thing for the next 8 months, and that's only if I write three hours a day. It most likely will end up longer, and 120K is a bare minimum estimate based on past experience. Some days I'll write more, some days I'll write less, but I try to shoot for 750 words a day. I may choose to revise my outline based on what happens as I write. And, of course, some days life will interfere, and I won't write at all. So, it's probably going to end up longer than that, but there you go.<br>So yeah, that's my plan. I've done it before, and I can do it again. A million thanks to all of you who read this. I hope you found it entertaining. And, as always, I bid you adieu with a quote.<br>"If you want to know me, then you must know my story, for my story is me"<br>- Chief Dan George<br><br>EDIT: After re-reading my post, I noticed that it seems like I ramble a bit. Sorry if that is confusing. The idea is basically that my first draft failed because I tried to shoe-horn this one idea into the story, even though it didn't work. The second draft is going to be different because I wrote down every possible idea for the story, and then I used the ones that worked best. I think that's going to make the story better.<br><br>ANOTHER EDIT: Also, I don't think it's possible to post in this sub. I've tried multiple times, and nothing has worked. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know.