Revisions end of week two

1,600 words.

I've finished going through chapter 1. A lot of the way through chapter 2. I'm going to combine them since they were both a bit short. I've been loving letting my inner editor out and getting to focus on quality prose for once.

Revisions: end of week 1

I'm about a thousand words into the fourth draft and I've already realized I cannot fix this in 6 weeks. I thought maybe I could get it up to readable-by-someone-else standards by then, and I might be able to do that much. But I'm not going to get it to a level of polish I'll be satisfied with in such a short amount of time. There is simply too much to do.

This has been making me think about my future plans in general. What kind of writer do I want to be? Is it okay if I'm a slow writer? Am I a slow writer? Where should I realistically expect myself to be, progress wise?

I think, in general, I just need to remember that I enjoy writing, and while I would love to be a published writer, I am already a writer, simply by virtue of... writing. And I love doing it. Anything more is just icing And I don't need to tie myself up in knots because I haven't achieved my next goal yet.

Revisions

Yesterday I ensconced myself in the local library and read through my entire practice novel in four hours. Now I am working on a revision schedule for it, which will probably take me the next few days. I plan on spending about 6 weeks on revisions and then going back to The Robot Changeling. Updates might be more sporadic, but I'll try to post something every day.

I'm just thrilled to be working on something other than a first draft for once.

The plan so far

Now to put this baby in a drawer for a few weeks.

How many weeks? I'm not sure. Conventional wisdom says about six, but a lot of it will depend on how long it takes me to revise my practice novel, which is what I'm going to be doing while The Robot Changeling sits. How long that will take me depends on what I find when I do my big read through of my practice novel, which will probably not happen tomorrow. It might not be until Saturday or Monday, possibly even Tuesday since that's my day off. The plan is to read through my practice novel and then make a revision plan, possibly for exactly 6 weeks and then go back to The Robot Changeling whether I'm done with my practice novel or not.

After I spend a reasonable amount of time on revisions for my practice novel, then I will come back to The Robot Changeling and do a read through for it, at which point I will know if I need to start over from scratch (probable) or start revisions.

While I may not update tomorrow, you can expect me back here by at least early next week working on my practice novel, which I am so excited for. I have been itching to get to revisions for weeks now, and it's finally here.

Day 57

2,450 words.

And done.

Day 56

1,877 words.
 
And I might be done tomorrow.

Or Friday. But I'm so close I can taste it. Endings always kick my butt, so it's possible it will end up feeling abrupt. (My endings often do.) But it's also not the final draft, so that doesn't matter as much. All the important parts of the story will be done. 

Day 55

1,060 words, most of which are scrap.

Actually, not scrap so much as me figuring out the story through my characters. Does anyone else do that? Sometimes I find myself writing dialogue that I realize is actually me figuring out where the story needs to go next. I realized almost at the end of my writing session that I was starting to explore concepts and themes better suited for a possible sequel. I'm not sure I ever will write a sequel, but apparently I know how it will begin. I rewound again to another iteration of the ending I'd scrapped for logistical reasons, but which fits better thematically. Now to figure out how to explain a twelve-year-old beating up a grown man, even if both of them are robots.

I made him a nest

Day 54

1,512 words.

I rewound about 1,100 words because they had kind of veered off into horror territory. Now it's much more heartwarming. 

But I've also realized that escaping the villain isn't the climax of the story. That, and the fact that I think I started the story too late, means it's turning out to be a lot longer than I thought. It's already approaching 60,000, and will probably be something like 70,000 when I'm done. Add another 10,000 for the beginning and then account for my tendency to leave out description when I'm writing first drafts and you have something getting way too close to 100,000 if I'm not careful. That's just way too long for middle grade.

I think I will not let this be present me's problem, though. I'm still worrying about story structure in general, I can worry about word count later.

Day 53

1,861 words.

*tears hair out* I don't know, what would you do if your daughter turned out to be a robot?

This is what I get for not wanting to go the easy way.

Day 52

1,017 words.

I left things on the edge of the precipice hanging over the true emotional climax of this book. Tomorrow she'll see her parents again. Even I don't quite know how they'll react.

Day 51

1,420 words.

I'm more satisfied with this direction. I used some chunks of writing from the discarded parts, so it wasn't wasted. Technically, no writing is wasted, even if it's only practice. But it's nice to be able to copy/paste whole paragraphs.

Day 50

564 words, several index cards and a decision to unravel the narrative all the way back to the climax.

*looks back at the entry where I thought I would be done by the end of March.* grumble mumble overconfident mumble grumble *slinks back into my lair*

I'll be done when I'm done, I guess.

Keeping me company while I write

Day 49

1,041 words.

Okay, not as close to done as I thought. There's a fair amount of wrapping up to do, and I have a feeling this ending is going to drag a bit. To the point that I wonder if the escape is even going to be the actual climax of the book. Oh well. Big structure questions like that are future me's problem. I just need to write down what happens, I can make sure it flows well later.