Words About Writing

After much thought, some prayer, and a review of my previous notes, I have decided to begin a new project for Nanowrimo. As for the current book in review, I will continue making my notes for the next edit. However, instead of doing that edit as a November project, I will write a brand new first draft of a new novel in November, and begin the next edit of my current WIP after that. I'm happy with this plan. That gives my WIP time to sit after I make notes and before beginning the edit. It also will give the next book time to sit after writing the first draft, while I edit WIP. That may sound confusing, but it's not. This next one has been in my head for a while, but it involves some world-building, so not much is written except notes. We'll see how it goes!

I am loving this next editing step. (I was right: the 4th reader hadn't finished, but she gave me a couple general notes about the part she read.) First, in Scrivener, I pulled out all the scenes that had significant comments from my readers. That dropped my word count from 57,000+ to around 23,000. (I'm thinking of doing major re-writes during Nanowrimo, so need to reduce the word count.) Now, I'm going through the remaining scenes, cleaning up minor grammatical stuff, and using the "Notes" function to make suggestions to myself for later. My intention is to put notes into all of these remaining scenes. Since it's flowing pretty well, that should take about a week. After that, I'll do the same with the scenes I purged into a separate folder down in the "research" tab on Scrivener. But for those, I hope to clear out whole paragraphs of text as I go. I feel like I'm back on track. It took a while to compile the notes from my readers....

Three days until the end of the month, when I should be able to begin the next draft. Two days ago, I contacted the 4th reader, who I've not heard a word from, just to see if she was still on track. She had read the first couple chapters, then got busy with work. She hoped to read some more the next day. I know from the other three readers that the start is slow and confusing in places. My guess is she got bored and stopped. I hope she gets a bit further into it, but I'm not holding my breath. My point being, I need to better prepare my readers, and prepare my book for my readers, next time around. And I have now read multiple blog posts and articles about using beta-readers, and they contradict each other in various ways. After I figure out what works and doesn't (so, a few years down the road) I will write my own "how to use beta-readers". I guess it's different for everyone. As unexpected as this process has been, I can honestly say, it helped. Ju...

Feedback has started rolling in from my Beta-readers. I'm learning a lot. First off, it's valuable feedback, but the first two readers to finish did not do as I had expected. Notes are not as in-depth as I had requested, and one even wasted time pointing out typos or missed word placement, which I distinctly said not to look for. But I do have a couple things that I know I need to fix for the next draft, and I'm so glad I'm doing this before seeking an agent, etc.! I do know that the two who have supposedly finished will not be readers for me at this stage on future books. One gave broad, sweeping notes, and said that the grammatical issues were a distraction for her. The other seemed to think of it like reading a pre-release - just make a couple notes and give a review? I would love to have them read at a later stage on a future book. It's all good information for me. This is a learning process. I think next time I might ask on my blog, or on twitter, and s...

I got my first feedback from a reader! Basically, after the first 100 pages, she sent me some general notes. It was very useful. I'll have to rename some characters to prevent confusion, and I might have to "kill my darling" as one scene that I love and find a cute interlude in the story put my reader to sleep. Haha! So... the work is going. I haven't officially sat back down to write, but I have done a few word-sprint writing exercises, all of which seem to help illuminate a WIP that I had set aside thinking it's too big for right now. I might keep doing these sprints to help illuminate that story, but I really want to get to plot-work soon, too. I figure September will be editing the manuscript that is currently with readers. We'll see how long that actually takes.

Woohoo! I finished my revision yesterday! I was delayed a few days by a cold. I can't think straight with a head full of phlegm, and wasn't about to try editing in that state, but still, the 10th is not too far off schedule. During those phlegm-filled days I contacted a few additional readers, so by the time I closed the manuscript I had them all lined up. Today I am busy formatting the manuscript to send to four readers in different parts of the world. I'm pretty excited about that. One is an excellent writer and reader with a knack for finding plot-holes and mistakes. One was an English/Creative Writing major in college, with an unpublished novel under her belt. Two are avid readers with diverse tastes who have a firm grasp on the process. It's my first time reaching this step, so here's for posterity: I am sending an electronic copy of the manuscript to each reader in their preferred format. I set up a group in Messenger, and gave a clear list of what I am ...

What? It's been a month? I'm settling into a new routine, and have been making steady editing progress, but I had hoped to finish this revision this month. So yesterday I sat down and set some hard goals. Don't get me wrong, I have a fairly relaxed life right now and have no intention of adding stress. I realized that if I commit myself to editing two scenes a day - JUST TWO - I would be done with this revision just a day or two into July. That's acceptable. So my plan is "two scenes or three hours" a day. Some days I have more time or less. In fact, Sundays are probably out. Hence "or three hours" as I see how the pace flows. It's good. In July I'll hunt down beta-readers - I have two ready and waiting. Then comes the bigger daunting task: query letter, find an agent, all that personal interaction stuff that, I imagine, leads a lot of very good writing to languish in computers the world over. I know a lot of people who "have writt...