My fingers get to rest

I’ve just finished entering all my handwritten corrections for my next novel. As you might recall, I did an entire edit on paper, using Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision method. I am exhausted!

It has taken me seven weeks, exactly, to reach this point, on a manuscript that clocked in at just under 85,000 words. I’m not declaring the revision done yet; as I worked I wrote multiple notes to myself like “deleted Character X in Chapter 18, be sure she doesn’t show up in the first 17 chapters”. Now I need to go back and take care of those things.

So far, the most surprising thing to me has been that, just like CANDOR, I ended up writing an entirely new last “act” of the book. Lots of chapter carnage (12 chapters entirely deleted) and lots of new stuff (11 new chapters added!). But the very last chapter stayed the same. I knew where I wanted to go, but I decided on a simpler and hopefully more dramatic path to the end.

I’m also surprised by how many words I trimmed out, especially since I wasn’t even worrying about word count while I revised. The new draft is almost 15,000 words lighter than when I started—and interestingly enough, just 25 pages longer than CANDOR. I wonder if there’s a natural book length for me, in the end.

Of course, this is nowhere near the end for this book. After I put in the finishing touches, it heads to my agent and then off to my editor. I’m sure I will have just as intense an edit waiting for me once she’s read through it! But I’m excited. I can’t wait to see what this book turns to be like.

And the best part of this schedule? I should be able to bundle this baby off just in time to celebrate the release of CANDOR, just one week from Tuesday!