I can’t believe it, but before I cam to Albuquerque I knuckled down last month and finished all of the third draft. Almost all. Ten pages shy.
It’s changed so much since draft one. It’s only five percent shorter, and it flies. It spins out like a kite string.
Still, I have realized I need another swing through it to make it less judgmental. And another for descriptions, now that I have room. And of course the other remaining seventeen for consistency in dialog and the like. This might actually be done before Christmas.
4 responses to “Rewriting the Novel: Benchmark”
Here from Bibliomama’s blog to say hello! Congrats on your rewrite! I have been working on a novel for a long while, and need to take another stab at revising. This time, I need to pare out all the extraneous fluff that I am so precious about, but holy cats is it hard!
I LOVE your blog’s tagline, by the way.
Suzanne (hi Suzanne!) – It really is hard. I think it’s less hard when the novel started out as someone else’s. And maybe your extra fluff is charming. I just heard Obama’s speechwriter on Colbert talking about how not everything has to be a 10 out of 10, maybe there needs to be some room for silence. Maybe you need that extra for pacing.
That’s a very kind suggestion.
And I suppose it COULD be different, when the novel isn’t yours. But the pressures must be different, too. In any case, best of luck in revising! (Especially since you’ve found a later draft, it sounds like. Sigh.)
Suzanne – I was going to spend my extra hour of Daylight Saving to read it , but I decided to spend it rehydrating my body. Because what if it’s,good? What if I’m trying to improve something he already improved? I think I’ll wait until next weekend to see if I’ve been wasting all this time.