I am now on chapter 11 of 35 in my rewrite. It began as an in-depth edit until I realized I was kidding myself. So much of my page was consumed by extra facts and unnecessary explanation to the reader my story l lost all momentum.
After over two months of rewriting I am still only one chapter 11. I have a demanding job, yes, but I also have been forcing myself to take my time. In one chapter alone I decreased the word count by 38%. I can honestly say the story is stronger for it.
I received the first edits of my story back from my friends and I've got a lot of work ahead of me.
At first I thought I could simply read their edits and make notations: "Keep this", "Rework this", "Make into dialogue", etc. But the changes required were so significant I couldn't bring myself to do a line-by-line approval.
I decided the more prudent idea for me would be to retype my entire novel.
I sent my book off to my beta readers a couple of weeks ago. After doing so, I realized that pretty much all of them were friends of mine on Facebook, so I created a private group for everyone to discuss the book and what they were getting from it so far.
I have only heard from two people so far (out of seven).
My first book is coming to a close. I know that it'll have to go through a significant editing process, but I'm so happy that it's nearing completion. The world I started with has increased in size to such a degree that I'm beginning to believe it. :-)
I have a list of agents that I'm going to start sending it to once I finish the preliminary editing process. Once done I'm going to start work on the second part of the book and see where that takes me.
I have been struggling through my first writing project. I've always had a way with words (spoken that is), so a year ago I decided to start writing a novel. How could I know then that I would be on my third revision? How could I know the sacrifice required for good fiction?
