Slowly but Surely, the Process Moves Forward

It's been a little while since I posted, so I think it's time to give an update on my progress, and the process I went through to get here.

2010 and Prior -Wrote the "Shitty First Draft" (SFD)
The SFD took me a long time, about two years.  Of course, I was/am a new writer, still figuring everything out (I'd only seriously been writing for about a year prior to starting 'Pack'.)  About six months (and 35,000 words) into the first version, I decided to rewrite everything.  The premise was the same, but the cast and initial setup was completely different.  The only character I kept was my protagonist, Laila.  Even then, I didn't really know what I was doing, and kept going back and changing things around, so I chalk up most of the two years to newbie mistakes and the learning curve.  The next one won't take nearly so long.  I hope.  :-)

January - SFD Complete
My first draft was not good.  The basic concept was written, the characters were more-or-less developed, and the overall content was laid out, but it wasn't anywhere close to being published.  Which was fine.  It's accepted wisdom that the first draft should be shitty.  The author needs to write the first draft as fast and as creatively as possible, without letting the internal critic slow the process down.  The critic is allowed out to play during the editing process, and that's when you start to have a publishable story.

February/March - Prepared for Beta Readers
This was the first round of edits, and to be fair, I really went through the manuscript two or three times before I sent it out to anyone to read in full.  (I'd asked for some feedback on certain sections, but ultimately I decided it wasn't worthwhile to share the novel in bits and pieces.)  Even after the edits, the manuscript wasn't perfect.  I knew it wasn't ready to go out into the world, but I wasn't able to see what needed to change.  Luckily, that's what beta readers are for.

April - Break month.
I sent the complete manuscript to several people to read and give me feedback (my beta readers).  These were people that I trusted to give honest, constructive criticism, and they did a great job for me.  They all found aspects of the story that they liked, as well as things that needed to be fixed or changed to improve the clarity and cohesiveness of the story.  In particular, I found out I'm not so good at the description.  Which is great (okay, not great that I suck at providing enough setting and description, but great that now I know I suck at it, so I can pay more attention to it in the future, and fix my problems).

Meanwhile I took a break from 'Pack'.  I worked on other things, most time-consuming of which was my day job (it was my busy season). But more importantly, I needed to put some distance between the manuscript and me.  In order to see the flaws, I had to be able to read with fresh eyes, and a new perspective.  I couldn't be so wrapped up in the story that I took all of the criticism personally.  

May - Paper Review
First, I read through an unedited version of the manuscript, making my own edits on paper.  I called this the Master Copy.  Then I read through each beta reader's comments on their version of the paper copy, adding the changes and comments I agreed with to the Master Copy.  Each beta got their own color of pen in the Master as well, so I could keep track of who said what.  Have I mentioned before that I'm a bit of a Type A nerd?  Anyway, I managed to get all of that done for all five copies of the manuscript, despite the fact that I was still swamped at work and busy with personal things on the weekends. 

June (forecasted) - Finish Major Rewrites
My goal this month is to finish incorporating the written edits into the digital file, so that I have a completed work of fiction by July 1.  I think it's doable, but I will have to knuckle down and work hard to get there.  I need to add a couple of scenes, revise the ending, and generally make a lot of changes.  But I really think it's coming along.  Once the major rewrites are done, I'm going to send it to a couple more people to read, to see if it's (finally) ready to go out the door.

In the end, this has been a long and involved process.  Now that I've gone through it (or will have gone through it soon) I'll do better on the next novel.  I now know where I tend to get stuck, and what steps I'll have to go through to get it all finished.  Plus, I'm a much better writer now than I was when I started, so the SFD should go faster next time.  

I want to emphasize, however, that the writing process takes as long as it needs to take.  I'm not going to rush through everything and send a piece of crap out into the world.  If I need to go through another round of edits on 'Pack' to make the story sparkle, I will.  Good things are worth waiting (and working) for.

Withdrawal

It has been just over one week since I sent out the Beta Manuscript.  I promised myself that I would not edit Pack while the beta readers are working.  To that end, I've given myself one month away.  Here's my reasoning:

1. Respect for the readers: if I'm fiddling with the manuscript, then they're not reading the latest version, and their time is wasted.  
2. Fresh eyes: giving myself some time away will let me go back and read with renewed vision.  I'll be able to see the typos and errors better, and gain a new perspective on the story.
3. Distance: when reader input comes back, I'll have a bit of distance from the project.  I won't be as wrapped up in crafting the story, so I'll be able to consider their feedback with an open mind, and not take things personally. 

Unfortunately, taking time off is proving a much more difficult task than anticipated.  I can't stop thinking about it!  Even though I'm not reading the words on the page, I'm still revising things in my head and second guessing certain decisions I made along the way. 

"Is that scene really necessary?  Maybe I should have taken it out before sending to the beta readers." 

OR 

"That transition was too fast, there wasn't enough time between action A and response B." 

I will not go back to edit.  I will not go back and revise. 

The thing is, I was really happy with it when I sent Pack off to be read.  I felt pretty good about it.  Is it perfect?  No, but I thought it was as close as I could get on my own without new insight.  I still think that's true.  Additional edits might have just been changes, and not necessarily for the better.  I need the time away and I need the feedback.  So I will wait, as frustrating as that may seem sometimes!

I'm trying to distract myself with other related projects.  I'm seriously researching the publishing options, reading blogs and books on all aspects of the subject.  I'm revising a short story set in the same world as Pack but 60 years prior.  I'm writing the content for my website and bugging my husband to help me design it.  I'm thinking about the next book and starting on a very rough outline.

All in all, this is still going to be a productive month, but I can't wait to hear what the readers think and get back to finishing Pack!

Quick Update

I apologize for missing my posting earlier this week.  Things have been a little crazy around here.  So I'm just going to give a quick update on where I'm at.

I finished a second (or is it third?) review of the manuscript, tightened up some plot points and rewrote the ending.  The ending still needs some work, but I'll get back to that.

I've decided I need to write-out a character from the original draft.  She felt like a 2D stereotype and didn't add much to the story.  In fact, she wasn't physically in most of the story, usually appearing only through phone conversations.  I figured out a way to replace her, so I'm going to do it.  But that means a lot of revision, and one more pass on the manuscript before Beta. 

The new ending also beefed up another character for me, and added a new dimension to the story that I have to scatter throughout the manuscript.  I think it will be much, much better this way.

All of these changes have really cut down the size of the manuscript.  I'm down to about 60,000 words, which is a little short for a novel.  If I continue to slice and dice, it could go even lower than that (and might be better for it).  I'm considering calling it a novella now instead of a novel.  There are issues with that, of course, including that novella's are often difficult to sell through Traditional Publishing, but I'm thinking I don't want to go that route...much to ponder before fully making that decision, but I'm thinking about it.

I should have a Beta Manuscript by the end of the weekend.  My Beta Readers are lined up and ready to go.  Then it will be a month-long "break" from the novella.  I have a couple of story ideas that I'm going to start working on during the "break" to see if anything sticks.  I also have a short that I want to clean up and post for free online.  And I'm going to put up my own website soon too, so you can look forward to that.

Well, so much for a "quick" update.  There really is a lot going on!