I love it when a plan comes together
Well, here we are at the beginning of Easter and for once, I’ve hit a self imposed deadline with time to spare.
I finished the first draft of my new Middle Grade (that’s 9-12 age range, shortened to MG) novel over a week ago (I’d aimed to do it before Easter, if you remember my last blog entry) and have sent it to a valued friend, a published and award-winning writer, who gave me some very positive feedback. Now obviously, this is still a first draft, so it still has all sorts of flaws, omissions, un-fleshed out characters and continuity errors, but she’s experienced enough to see through those things to imagine what it will be like when I’m finished editing (a bit like those make-over experts who can visualise an old-run down house as it will look when it’s fully updated and decorated on those house porn shows) so I’m taking that as a very encouraging sign.
Since then, I’ve been doing a first edit. The purpose of this one is to tidy up anything too glaring before I send the book to my agent, Ben Illis, for his opinion.
Normally, I’d wait a while before editing (“put it in a drawer for a month and don’t look at it,” Ben usually says) because this helps me spot things I’d otherwise miss when editing too soon because immediately after writing something, I’m still too close to the book.
Why am I just doing a first edit now, you ask? Didn’t I listen to my agent? Well, to be honest, editing is probably too grand a description - it’s more of a slight tidy up. Ben can see through all the things that will be taken care of in an edit too and so I’ll just tackle the absolutely obvious stuff. The fact is that Ben will be giving me the benefit of his considerable experience when he reads the first draft and I fully expect him to suggest I make changes. Possibly major ones, and If I’m going to make a lot of changes, then there’s not much point in polishing the book too much, I can do that later when it’s closer to its final form.
So I’m about 50% through the edit/tidy up and expect to be finished in the next few days, after which it will go to Ben. Then, I’ll have to wait. Ben has a lot of other clients besides me, several of whom have book launches coming up and there are also book fairs in Bologna and London coming up (where agents pitch books to publishers) so I don’t expect him to get back to me immediately.
In the past, I’ve paced a bit, complained a bit (ok, a lot) and generally tortured myself while waiting for feedback, but this time, I’ve got something else to do. Remember Pandora Wolfe? How a publisher said that they really liked it, but it was 10,000 words too long? Well, while I wait, I’ll be going back to Pandora to edit it down to under 60,000 words. This is something I feel will be a lot easier to do now (the new book is under 50,000 words) and it’s a productive use of my time. By the point when Ben responds about my new book, I could be finished editing Pandora down. At that point, I’d have two books to offer, albeit one (the new one) needing lots of editing and changing.
And of course if all else fails, I’ve another new idea bubbling away in the back of my mind, which I’ll be starting on when I get the time. I finished the first draft of the latest MG book in about 6 months (even with a couple of unproductive months in the middle) and I feel like I’ve found my writing pace, so I think I’ll be faster when I write that one.
In the meantime, since my last deadline seemed to work so well, I’m going to set another. Once I send my new book to my agent, I’ll immediately start work on Pandora Wolfe and I want to have finished a re-working of it by the end of May. I’ll let you know how I get on.
TTFN
#writing #editing #deadlines