I have finished the first draft of my novel! I could not have been more exited to type in the words ‘The End’! In total I have written 128,092 words and at long last I can say that I have written a novel, even if nobody ever reads it! I started celebrating with a bottle of pink champagne within minutes of finishing and have pretty much spent most of the week on a bit of a high (this is due to the excitement not the pink fizz).
I am now staring at a very large manuscript, that needs some serious editing to ensure that it is both the right length for my genre and it is not a crime to literature. This is so much easier said than done. Nobody warned me about this bit. I am trying to follow Roz Morris’ Beat Sheet method where you start off by summarising each chapter without actually changing anything. This is a great idea, but it's proving too hard for me. As I read it I keep having little light bulbs and alarm bells triggered that need immediate attention. Instead of my aim to reduce the word count, I keep spotting things that should be ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and blinding omissions where I need to add an explanation, otherwise the reader will be lost. So in short my editing is resulting in a higher word count. Argh!
I’m sure it will get easier, and I will persevere as my wonderful group of readers are patiently waiting for a readable draft, and they deserve the best I can produce, as they may be the only people that ever read it!
I am now staring at a very large manuscript, that needs some serious editing to ensure that it is both the right length for my genre and it is not a crime to literature. This is so much easier said than done. Nobody warned me about this bit. I am trying to follow Roz Morris’ Beat Sheet method where you start off by summarising each chapter without actually changing anything. This is a great idea, but it's proving too hard for me. As I read it I keep having little light bulbs and alarm bells triggered that need immediate attention. Instead of my aim to reduce the word count, I keep spotting things that should be ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and blinding omissions where I need to add an explanation, otherwise the reader will be lost. So in short my editing is resulting in a higher word count. Argh!
I’m sure it will get easier, and I will persevere as my wonderful group of readers are patiently waiting for a readable draft, and they deserve the best I can produce, as they may be the only people that ever read it!
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