Editing and Redrafting Woes

Struggling a bit. Well, in the sense that I'm redrafting a story and editing it and adding lots of words and good things like that, and have been getting really into it, but in trying to make characters better having the problem that I have far too many chracters -  but then it's a school. It has to have all these characters. How do I balance that?

Maybe it's that I need more plot. I don't know.

And I keep thinking, 'ooh I should put a scene in in this classroom or where this happens', but then I'm very concious of scenes needing to further the plot. You know what I mean?

Does anyone else struggle with this? 

Any advice?

Other than that things are going well - despite my worries about this draft, I'm loving editing this story. And I handed my poems and essay in (yay!). Things are looking good this term. Busy but good.

Fountain Pens, Drafts and Modules

Yesterday I wrote 'The End' across another handwritten draft. I love writing by hand, and especially with fountain pen. My Dad treated me to a new fountain pen yesterday as my old one was dropped and slightly damanged (although the woman in the shop told me that it was fine and I simply needed to hold my pen properly....). Anyway, we were persuaded to a lamy, which I've never had before and I did feel like I'm betraying Parker. But the truth is, I love it. It's 'aubergine' coloured apparently, so sort of purpley, and it has a lovely grip, which I suppose sort of forces me to hold it better. I love the design too. Lots of people had them at school and I remember always thinking they were really cool and being a little bit jealous. I also love that you can get really awesome coloured inks for lamy as well. I've got my usual black at the moment, but I'm definitely going to invest in some turquoise and violet inks I think, although when I will find a use for these colours I don't know! Anyway, as you might have guessed I'm a little obsessed with fountain pens!

Back to this draft. It's more of a skeleton draft. I know there are things I need to pad out and develop, things that need to go further and all that, but it's good to have the outline of the story. Now that I've done that however, I know I need to get on with properly editing my other story and a short story I wrote recently. There are no excuses now!!

I've also got to try and choose my modules for next year, which is why I'm sat here writing this now. There is a choice of two for next term, and both of them will mean a deviation from what I'm used to. One involves writing poetry, which I'm not a fan of, but involves creating images and shapes. The other involves creating plots and writing a plot treatment (very film based, and I'm not the world's biggest film fan). I have dallied with writing scripts before, so that appeals, more than the poetry I think because creating plots is what I do really right? But what sort of challenge do I want?

Help!

I'm going to go with the plot one aren't I?

That's the one I thought I would go with, but I'm unsure.

Arggggh.