Sunday 2 May 2010

44 Day Challenge - Success

My 44 Day Challenge for one pass of editing is complete. Actually, I finished it on 30th of April but since I was doing a guest post, this one is delayed a little.

Editing is a strange thing for me - sometimes I love it, sometimes I get bored that I have to do it, and sometimes I get annoyed that it's not showing the scene as I want it to. But coming back to love it part - there were scenes that I read, and I was so surprised that they were there, because I just loved them. Scenes that did not need changes beyond polishing or spelling errors. Of course those are few, compared to tons of others that need major changes.

Overall, the challenge was success. But, the overall book yet is not at the state I would have liked after that. It is essentially due to the major new plot thread I added towards the end of the book. Because that needs a lot of new scenes, and of course story line woven through already written scenes, it is A LOT of work, and HIGH word count. 

Just to give you an example,  the first draft was 81539 words. Currently, my draft is 87000+, and I am not done adding new scenes. This is also while constantly cutting out excess words. So I expect the whole draft to go over 90K when all the scenes are there, and I still need to add descriptions. But then editing afterwards should trim it down again. 

I have started second pass of editing. I am trying to do a quick one with this, to go through, fix what I see, and most importantly work with the new scenes in making a seamless draft. Probably after that I will do another detailed editing. So yes, a lot of work. But the best part is when I find scenes that I love, and then I know that if I stick to editing, I can make the whole book like that. So that's pushing me on. 

8 comments:

  1. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
    I'd never though you wouldn't get it! It's fact:
    You're a fighter and a winner! :-)

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  2. Woop! Awesome, Dolly! :D

    Adam

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  3. Congrats! Sounds like a lot of work left to be done...but major progress for this first pass. Kudos to you for being so disciplined!

    I completely agree that editing is a strange thing. Some days, I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. ;-)

    Good luck with the rest!

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  4. Nofretiri,
    Thank you. I am flattered, and you are so sweet. :-)

    Adam,
    Thanks. Now just need to finish the damn book.

    Jamie,
    Thank you. Yup, certainly a lot more work to be done. But hopefully I will get there. Yup, hate those odd days when scenes don't cooperate.

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  5. Woo Hoo! What a great accomplishment ;o)Editing is weird isn't it... *sigh* I need to get going on mine!

    *throws confetti*

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  6. Oh thank you, Erica :-) I haven't been showered with confetti since my wedding day.

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  7. Congrats on the challenge. I didn't quite make my 4/30 date. I'll probably be a couple of weeks out. But like you, I love revisiting the scene and reliving the magic.

    Good luck on the continued revision process.

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  8. Congrats on completing your challenge!

    It's always great to come across a scene in editing that you really love, isn't it? Hopefully this will happen more often with your second pass. :-)

    Good luck to you!

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