So, after roughly 5 months, I finished the first round of edits/revisions about a week and a half ago, which was a week earlier than I had anticipated. Although, I do need to revisit the final 3 chapters and the epilogue. As with the first draft, I felt like I breezed through those final chapters, so I need to go back and spend a little more time on those before I go back and re-read it. I meant to do that last week but since I had finished the revisions early, I decided to take a break from writing altogether. It was certainly a much needed break, but I’m ready to re-visit those chapters this week.
Once I do that, I want to go back and read the entire novel again with all the changes I made over the last 5 months. Every time I finished editing a chapter, I would go back and read the chapter again, making little changes or fixes along the way. Based on those little re-reads alone, I feel like the novel is a whole lot better than the first draft. There’s definitely a lot more work, but for the first time since I started writing it in 2013, I’m actually excited for others to read the book. After I’ve had a chance to re-read it, I’ll probably keep tweaking it before I contact my editor.
Like I said, there’s still a lot of work to be done to make the story the best it can be. These edits took 5 months. I don’t imagine the next round will take quite as long. Although, this is the first time I’ve ever done something like this, so who knows? I do know it won’t be published this year, as much as I really want it. And that’s okay. Hopefully, by the next blog update at the end of July, I might have a better timeline on the next part of the process.
In blog-related news, since I took a break from all writing last week, I didn’t get a chance to write any posts. Now that the first round of edits are done, I’m going to work on updating this at least twice a week, maybe more depending on my schedule. But this will become my primary focus for a while. Plus, I’ve got some new ideas I want to try.
Oh, and I’m going to get back to reading more. On the days when I worked on my novel, I always tried to read at least 20 pages before I got to writing. But then, on weekends, I wouldn’t even pick up the book I’m reading. I want to read as much as possible because I think it will only help my writing in the long run, but it’s difficult when you spend many hours a day reading and re-reading your own shit. By the time I’m done, I don’t want to look at any more words if I don’t have to. I said at the beginning of the year that I would read 25 books and I’ve only read 6. I can still do it. I think.
I’ll have another update on the novel at the end of July.
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