Thursday 8 April 2010

Challenge 44: Charging Ahead

After declaring my 44 days challenge few weeks ago, time to post a little update.

It's definitely going well. As I said previously, this is just one pass of revision so I am not aiming for perfect. Main thing is to make sure all the plot changes are made, the new plot layer added and weaved throughout the story lines, and scenes that need changing as a result of it are changed. So far I have done the easy bit, as the new plot layer doesn't need adding until middle of the book, so there weren't too many major changes in the beginning and just one new scene to add - which did take a while, because it's always difficult adding things in already finished story.

However, currently I am ahead of schedule. I am trying to pull ahead now, because I know that once I get to the middle - in about a scene or two - and have to start writing new material, it will take much longer, and might even make it harder to meet daily goals, so the better I do now, the more time I have.

Also, instead of 44 days, now I want to complete this challenge in 39 days, which would be 30th of April. Since it's end of the month, makes a neater ending. That's my ideal plan, and one I am aiming for, but it all depends on how things go.

This challenge has certainly proven, yet again, that short term fixed goals do work for me. NaNo was a success, and this challenge so far has proven more productive than last two months put together. So this is the kind of format I plan to use in the future for all writing/editing goals. It also, to a certain extent, enables me to work on one thing at a time, which is good for me, because flitting about all over the place is not as productive as focusing on one thing at a time (and I am the queen of multi-tasking so when I say it, I mean it).

For me, it is also more important because majority of all books I have planned include my own created worlds. It's not easy to keep two worlds unique when you work on them at the same time, ideas inevitably move from one to the other. I think this could work when the worlds are set concretely in my mind, but not at this stage when I am still exploring them. So this world deserves all my attention. And like the real world, it takes time to get to know every facade of imaginary worlds too.

So that's all the news on editing.

In other news, tomorrow we will have another guest post for "Why I Write..." series, so stay tuned.

8 comments:

  1. Good luck with the edits, Dolly! :-)

    I look forward to the next guest post, too. :)

    Adam

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  2. It does take quite a bit longer to add new material - far longer than I thought it would, to be honest. Kudos to you for getting ahead now. I'm going to have to scramble to meet my May 31st deadline. I'm glad to hear it's going well overall...looks like we're both finally getting "in the groove" for this revision thing. :-)

    Good luck with the new deadline!

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  3. Yay! It's always good to hear good news on goal-keeping. Makes me think it would be a good idea to, you know, make some goals of my own. Snort. :-)

    In all seriousness, congrats! The only way I managed to revise (and I mean gut it like the trout it was) the book that turned out to my first pubbed book was to take a systematic approach like you've done. From one queen of multi-tasking to another, my hat's (or should I say tiara?) off to you.

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  4. Adam,

    Thanks :-)


    Jamie,

    I am not even thinking about final deadline yet. I would love to have it finished by this summer, but I am taking it step by step, and see what needs to be done. Yes we both seem to have gotten over our editing stumbles :-) so good luck to us both.


    Cynthia,
    Tiara exchange sounds good :-DD - yes after a lot of faffing around, I figured systematic approach was the only thing that was going to get results. Hopefully, this will be my first published book.

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  5. You know what I like about you? You set yourself a goal and then you surpass it. :-)

    Great work on the editing! Myself, I'm learning it's far easier to edit someone else's work than my own. Maybe because I don't have as much of my "self" invested in it.

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  6. Sounds like you're really making progress. Good job.

    I'm also trying to finish up a round of revision which is also due on April 30th. Hey maybe we can help each stay on track.

    Let's make it happen.

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  7. C R,

    Thank you :-)) But it's usually because I am too impatient and I want to finish stuff. When I was in college, I didn't think 4 years was acceptable time to spend on one degree, so I wanted to finish it sooner, and did by taking 18 credits every semester. Just as well, because as it turned out I got married straight after.

    I do think other people's editing is easier. One because as you say we don't have a personal attachment to it, but I think also because we don't have to fix it. We just find the problems and pass it on, obviously with our own work, we then have to pull hairs out, trying to figure out how to fix the damn thing.

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  8. Karen,

    Thank you :-) And good luck with yours. Yes, we will have to keep prodding each other.

    Is your revision for submission or for yourself?

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