My editing journey has been quite interesting so far. I have felt every imaginable emotion for it, and I have also gone through finding it easy, hard, and in-between.
One thing I have come to realise that to have the editing complete by a certain date is not going to work for me. At least not for this book - because this is the first book I am editing, hopefully to a state where it could be publishable. I am learning a lot, but sometimes it is also a chore. Sometimes, I go through chapter a day, and at other times one page a day is tough to handle.
Currently I am going through the tough period. I do not ignore it, and I always want to do something to it, but only a little bit. For last several days, perhaps a week even, I look at a page or even paragraph. In the beginning, I kept beating myself up for not meeting my targets, but now I am wondering if that little ease of pace, a little distance from the intensive focus might be a good idea, even a productive one. This story has evolved so much from its inception, and even now, I keep thinking of ways to make it better, so perhaps my brain needs a little time to assimilate before acting. I don't know. It just might be an excuse. But I don't think so, because I am not bored or sick of editing. I still want to complete this book. I still love it. I just want to be sure that I do my best on it, and not hurry the process to meet my deadlines. I will have enough deadlines when I do make it in the industry, for now, it is more important to make sure that I take time to be ready, to make sure I can deliver quality.
What do you think? Do you give yourself a break some time? Take it easy? Focus on the quality? Do you get frustrated when things don't finish on time? How do you handle it?
Showing posts with label Editing Frenzy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editing Frenzy. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Editing Frenzy Begins
For the next 44 days, I plan to go into editing frenzy. Getting fed up with plodding along, and procrastinating, and getting distracted, I have decided now it's time to take the NaNo approach to editing. So yesterday I came up with a new plan.
44 days for one full pass editing. This won't be a final version, but it will be a revision of the full novel, with emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
Besides the obvious that I only have evenings and weekends to work, what are some of the challenges?
So here is the plan (and being such nice, lovely supporters that you are, feel free to use your whips when I flounder):
Total Days 44
Why 44 days?
Because 6th is my birthday, so this is going to be my challenge for this year of my life, and my present to myself - and I might not let myself celebrate if I don't finish it, but haven't decided on that yet. Because for now, failure isn't an option.
So this evening, after work, Editing Frenzy Begins...
44 days for one full pass editing. This won't be a final version, but it will be a revision of the full novel, with emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
Besides the obvious that I only have evenings and weekends to work, what are some of the challenges?
- I plan to add a major plot layer, which will mean writing new material worth about 10K to 15K
- It will also mean rewriting or tweaking many of the existing scenes to accomodate changes these plot layer will bring
- I have got 302 pages to edit as of today, which with new words will probably push up higher
So here is the plan (and being such nice, lovely supporters that you are, feel free to use your whips when I flounder):
- March 23 - March 28 = 34 Pages (Hey I have got plans for this Saturday)
- March 29 - April 4 = 50 Pages
- April 5 - April 11 = 54 Pages
- April 12 - April 18 - 46 Pages
- April 19 - April 25 = 46 Pages
- April 26 - May 2 = 46 Pages
- May 3 - May 5 = 26 Pages
Total Days 44
Why 44 days?
Because 6th is my birthday, so this is going to be my challenge for this year of my life, and my present to myself - and I might not let myself celebrate if I don't finish it, but haven't decided on that yet. Because for now, failure isn't an option.
So this evening, after work, Editing Frenzy Begins...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)