Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I've been underground for nearly four weeks because I suddenly decided to write my novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess in first person. If I'd known the work it would end up being I may not have even begun, but there it is. 120 hours later I'm doing the final check-through. And then I want to check out. Actually, I had this goal to revise two more novels this summer . . . silly me.

So the rewrite starts out innocently enough . . . I single space, paginate like a *real* book and make tons of changes along with all the *Jayden's*' to *I* and *hers* and *she's* to *me*. I also cut about 10 pages in extraneous verbage. I'm thinking, hey, this is pretty good. I like the voice better, I'm into the character more. And it only took me a week.

But another voice nags. "Go through it one more time. "
I obey.

I print out a hard copy this time instead of rewriting directly on my computer screen. I use bigger margins and bigger spaces so I can see and make corrections easier. I'm shocked as I'm reading and marking. My pages end up BLOODY! I mean, my red pencil is spilling its guts!

I rewrite the prose even more and I end up cutting 40 more pages of just plain verbage. Yes, 40! I guess I talk more on the page than I do in real life - although my three sons would majorly disagree. So in the end I've cut 10,000 words. It's now 80,000 words. I've put all the changes in and this round takes me 2.5 weeks of 8 hour days.

I'm burned out and couldn't face it Monday morning so I took a break and read two books yesterday and ran errands and took my son to the dentist. I needed that. Um, the books, not the dentist. The books helped me get out of *my* head and help me see the world again. I'm ready to finish today and mail this to a very patient, but highly interested agent.

Tomorrow . . . an interesting observation about repeated words.

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