Gloves on for Round Three!

How much revision/rewriting do your novels require? Over here, quite a bit. Even though I write the first draft with a loose outline, apparently I still write to discover the story instead of to record it. Totally seat-of-the-pants writing doesn’t work for me either. Call me a hybrid!

I spent a couple of months researching and building characters, settings, and plot arcs. Wrote the entire first draft in about three months, then flipped back to the beginning to fix the stuff I could already see was wrong (round two). Sent the novel out to a trusted crit buddy while I focused on other things in June…like vacation!

But you know? I want this novel to be ready to pitch at ACFW conference in September. So now that I’ve seen the words more clearly through my crit buddy’s eyes and done some brainstorming about what to throw out and what to develop further, I’ve created a revision outline in Scrivener. Basically each outline card links back to the original scene it represents, however loosely (unless it’s a brand new scene), with changes detailed. It’s taken me about a week to work through this to my (and my buddy’s!) satisfaction.

Now I’m faced with the task of writing a 90,000-word novel in the next six weeks. 15,000 words a week (or about 3,750 words a day, 4 days a week) is doable if challenging, but only because I know the characters and the plot so well at this stage. It’s also a consolation that I’ve done this before–last October, when I rewrote a 60,000-word novel in four weeks after an editorial request.

So…I’ve got some posts already scheduled through the remainder of the summer and I’m hoping there won’t be any holes on the blog, but you know? There might be. I’m going to be over here in my corner, fighting my fight, and hoping for the best.