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I was a day behind schedule, but it's official. The first draft of my WIP, "One Great Night" is complete!
Now I'll admit, there are a couple of places I used stand-in phrases and highlighted them to show I needed to go back and make them better, but that will happen during the revising process. But for intents and purposes, the story is complete from beginning to end.
This stage of a story is so, so fun. Now I'll let it sit for a couple of days and then do a read-through. Since I'd been writing in such a piece-meal fashion, this will be the first time I'll be reading the story from start to finish. How exciting is that?! From there I'll begin revising and tweaking and rewriting until it sounds the way I want it to. After that it will be 'search' edits where I use the find function in Word and look for specific words to eliminate or change. Then I'll go through and do manuscript formatting to make sure everything is aligned the way my publisher prefers.
The last step will of course be to submit it to my editor. The goal is to have it to her by the middle of August when I go back to school. Right now I'm feeling pretty good about my plan and my timeline.
In the meantime, I have a book coming out August 1 that I haven't even thought about promotion for. Yikes.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
Family Secrets - coming August 1 from The Wild Rose Press. Paperback available now!
Wow. Congratulations! I am envious of how you can write so fast. Is the second run-through harder or easier?
ReplyDeleteIt did seem quick this time around, but I think that was because when I started I had more already there than I thought.
ReplyDeleteI have to answer your question with 'both'. It's easier in a sense because I have the story arc complete so there's no plotting to be done, but it's harder because I often struggle with trying to find just the right way to something. I can spend an hour on tweaking just one phrase.
Congrats, Debra! I always breathe a huge sigh of relief when I get to the end of a first draft. That's when I say to myself, 'Now I can start to enjoy this story', because I enjoy the filling in, polishing, tweaking, and editing stages much more than the 'carving granite with a teaspoon' effort of writing the first draft!
ReplyDeleteThat is such a good way to put it, Paula. Carving granite with a teaspoon. It definitely feels like that sometimes! :)
ReplyDeleteSo happy for you, Debra! I have to admit I prefer the writing of the first draft to the editing of it. I like the creative side more than the "oh my gosh, I have to make this so others will like it" side. :) And I find the "find" stage of the editing tedious. But it is thrilling to know that you're almost there. Congrats and good luck!
ReplyDeleteMy tweaking and polishing etc aren't so others will like it. I do it (and enjoy it) because in the end I want to like it much better than the first draft!
DeleteYes, but people don't enjoy badly written books, so in a way, it is. In addition to just making it the best you can.
DeleteAgree with people not enjoying badly written books, Jen, but I still spend a couple of months (at least) refining and polishing because I can't let it go until I'm happy with it for my own sake.
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