Tuesday 1 November 2011

First draft typed up

After a mammoth effort last night, I managed to get the first draft revisions typed up last night.
This means that I can start NaNoReviMo on the 1st after all.
I sat down lunch time, with a freshly printed MS, and decided to give it a read through before I started hacking at it.
I've been feeling very good about the last edit. I saw loads of areas for improvements, and most pages were a mass of scribbles.
Surely this time, it's just be a case of tidying up the odd line here and there.
How wrong was I?
I'm shocked at how much I seemed to have missed the first time.  It's like I haven't done any revisions at all.

After putting the kettle on, and having a large mug of perspective (called tea), I have calmed down a bit.  That's the point of doing multiple revisions isn't it?  So that you keep making it better with each draft.  I think that I may have got carried away in the excitement of finding lots of things to change the first time round.

I know the above sounds quite negative, but I'm actually spurred on by realising that I've learnt some new things in the editing process:
* I can't fix it in one go.
* I need to be patient.  It will be ready when it's ready.  I can't push it out before it's ready, otherwise it'll never get published.
* Even though I've read countless times that it will take several edits before it reaches a passable standard, I never attached it to my own circumstances.
* I can still see improvements, or find better ways of writing lines that will hopefully draw the reader in.


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