Thursday, February 10, 2011

Almost There

Goooooooood evening, everyone! I hope you're having a good week. Mine has been crammed full of editing. I'm working on the final pre-querying draft of the book, and while I've already made a lot of progress, there's still much to do.

Right now I'm working on stylistic edits throughout the full manuscript. My eyes are starting to turn glossy. Haven't I already worked through the cadence of these passages once? twice? a half dozen times? Yet I keep finding new changes to make, new issues to consider. Gotta get all the perfectionism out now or I'll be editing ad aeternum.

Sometimes after multiple edits I start feeling like Sisyphus. (Yeah, that guy doomed to roll the boulder up the hill forever.) The drafts all start to look the same—one long string of words that refuse to become the story I want them to be.

But in those moments (like right now), I try to remember the feedback I've already gotten. The most recent draft was good—not great, but good. I've made progress. The edits I'm working on now will result in a better story.

And I'm almost done. You know that note in a song that tells you the song is just about to go into the next section of the music? I think I'm on that note with the editing. This moment in my story's life is almost complete, and soon I'll be ready for the transition to querying.

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In other fabulous news, my interview with Lydia will be up on The Sharp Angle tomorrow! I'm excited. I'll make sure to link it as soon as it's up.

Have a good one, everybody!

4 comments:

  1. Ugh! I hear you about editing and how it ALL just starts to look wrong. Hang in there girl!

    Very exciting about the interview! Things are really movin' and groovin' aren't they? Any news on the, errrm, other thing you mentioned in TSC?

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  2. Not yet.

    Yeah, I think it might be time to focus on a different aspect of editing for a few days and then come back to the stylistic stuff. Would be a good change of pace.

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  3. I know the eyes-glaze-over feeling 8-) Good luck with all the edits!! The query/summary was AWESOME! Do you have a target date for sending it out?

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  4. I'm planning to finish my edits by March 15th and start sending it out soon after.

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