Prior Goal: 10 revised pages a day and swap with Heather.
Accomplished: 59 pages - sort of.
Goal for new week: 10 revised pages a day.
Excuses / comments: I'm having some structural and plot problems, so I've had to brainstorm and then go back to rewrite sections I had already revised (hence the sort of). It's pretty exciting though - this second draft is quickly becoming a stranger to the first. I'm definitely not going to have my first pass of revisions done by the 30th like I wanted but I'm going to truck on and try to do as much as I can. Once I hit that date, a new goal will be set (if you haven't noticed, goals keep me sane).Since I'm in the deep end of it, I'd love to hear about your processes for revision. How do you tackle it? How long do you generally devote to the whole shebang?
2 comments:
I do some revision as I go. Usually when I start in the morning I'll look over what I wrote the day before and make some changes. I also go back when I'm done with a chapter and read through it for smoothness.
When I'm done with the first draft I go back to my outline and make changes to bring it up to date. Then I use different colored highlighters to note places where each subplot pops up. If one subplot seems too thin, or all references are limited to a couple of sections of the book, I'll add things to my outline to round it out. Then I do my second draft. The second draft usually goes pretty quick because I know exactly what I want to add.
When I'm done with the second draft I start giving it to critiquers. I use their input to make more changes. Then I put it away for awhile (several months) and when I come back to it again I can easily see language problems that I either didn't notice or didn't know how to fix before.
I do have one person who critiques from the beginning. She brainstorms the outline with me (which helps me avoid plotting problems from the start) then reads each chapter as I complete it. That bit of help is invaluable.
Thanks for sharing, Lisa! How have you been?
It sounds like you have a great process. Having Heather go through my MS with me has definitely been invaluable, so I second the value of having help from the beginning.
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