I haven’t made any New Year Resolutions, nor set any more unrealistic goals – still embarrassed about the last ones I declared! Not only can I not work whilst travelling, I also can’t work on more than one writing project as a time. So, no novella for Christmas … blush … sigh …
Dragon Sworn progresses at a glacial pace. By Christmas, I sat on the cusp of Lesson 17 of Holly Lisle’s ‘How to Revise a Novel’ course. This ‘write-in’ stage was murder when I did it for Taniel, but so worth it. At this level, one works with a single page from the working pile, which consists of no more than one scene at a time.
Each typed page has already been marked with revision codes. Now, the relevant worksheets need studying – do those corrections, breakthroughs, and brilliant new ideas I had, so long ago, still make sense. I chop out unwanted bits, write new words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole scenes – by hand. I move bits around by physically cutting and sticky-taping in new position. When done, each page goes on the cut pile, even if all I’ve done is add a comma.
Only perfect pages go on the perfect pages pile. I laughed when I stuck the placeholder for them on my desk – there will be no perfect pages, not this time. I decided to wait until after the festive season to start.
On Monday 6th January, 2020, I begin the final rewrite. I still believe I’ll manage an April/May publishing date.
May 2020 be all YOU want it to be.
🙂
Christine J Randall 
Good luck on hitting that deadline. I remember when I was revising the first draft of what’s become The Spinner’s Game. I was working in longhand, which I don’t do anymore, and I analysed every scene. Was it needed? Did it move the story on? What’s its purpose. The reading public has no idea of what goes on way back in the early reaches of a book.
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So true., crispina!
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Congrats on all of your writing projects – 😉
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