When Life Hands You Lymes Editing Update
Two weeks ago I spent hours staring at my computer screen, trying to make sense of all the feedback I'd received from beta readers (aka Lymeaides) regarding When Life Hands You Lymes. To clarify: Their words made sense, but I had no clue how to incorporate the advice into the actual book. Fun, fun.
The week was seriously so unproductive that it's surprising my book didn't launch an all-out revolt against me. (Or wait... Maybe that's what the problem was...) Not only did I gaze fixedly on my computer screen for way too long, but I also took lots of random walks where I ate gobs of tingling tart, and sometimes mushy sweet, berries. Normally walks help snap my brain into gear, but unfortunately it was taking a lot longer this time.
On the plus side, I'd recently read a book where I had many of the same thoughts that people were expressing about WLHYL, so it made it a lot easier to listen to them. I've been working on WLHYL for so long that Maddie's story is so incredibly ingrained into my brain that I sometimes forget what's really in the book and what parts I've taken out. That can leave for some jumbled scenes that seem randomly thrown together for no reason, and that's obviously not good. Since my brain tried to be helpful and kept subconsciously reinserting those deleted scenes, it was pretty difficult to figure out where the problem was. Humm...
Then at the beginning of last week something shifted and I was suddenly like Oh! NOW I SEE! (Which, probably prompted some excited running around the pond and happy swinging on the swing and large gulps of iced (decaf) coffee, but I won't say for sure, so you can use your imagination.) Then I hunkered down and actually accomplished a vast amount on the 15th draft, and was excited about the book again instead of looking for someone to rant to about it.
I did a lot of merging scenes and even changed the order of some small scenes. I took out over 3,500 words in scenes, and a few paragraphs. That's kinda a big deal considering that this is the 15th draft of the book and the story has already been cut down a large amount. I also shortened some chapters so I could take out scene breaks cause they were chopping the book into unhappy little pieces. Overall, the story now has a much more cohesive feeling then before, so it's all worth it.
When Life Hands You Lymes still has a distance to travel, but it's good to see the book moving forward after feeling like it was stagnant for way too long. Maddie's story has been one that I've long been half-way delighted and half-way freaked out about, and it's good to be in one of the "delighted" stages again.
And that's it for today, folks.
The week was seriously so unproductive that it's surprising my book didn't launch an all-out revolt against me. (Or wait... Maybe that's what the problem was...) Not only did I gaze fixedly on my computer screen for way too long, but I also took lots of random walks where I ate gobs of tingling tart, and sometimes mushy sweet, berries. Normally walks help snap my brain into gear, but unfortunately it was taking a lot longer this time.
On the plus side, I'd recently read a book where I had many of the same thoughts that people were expressing about WLHYL, so it made it a lot easier to listen to them. I've been working on WLHYL for so long that Maddie's story is so incredibly ingrained into my brain that I sometimes forget what's really in the book and what parts I've taken out. That can leave for some jumbled scenes that seem randomly thrown together for no reason, and that's obviously not good. Since my brain tried to be helpful and kept subconsciously reinserting those deleted scenes, it was pretty difficult to figure out where the problem was. Humm...
Then at the beginning of last week something shifted and I was suddenly like Oh! NOW I SEE! (Which, probably prompted some excited running around the pond and happy swinging on the swing and large gulps of iced (decaf) coffee, but I won't say for sure, so you can use your imagination.) Then I hunkered down and actually accomplished a vast amount on the 15th draft, and was excited about the book again instead of looking for someone to rant to about it.
I did a lot of merging scenes and even changed the order of some small scenes. I took out over 3,500 words in scenes, and a few paragraphs. That's kinda a big deal considering that this is the 15th draft of the book and the story has already been cut down a large amount. I also shortened some chapters so I could take out scene breaks cause they were chopping the book into unhappy little pieces. Overall, the story now has a much more cohesive feeling then before, so it's all worth it.
When Life Hands You Lymes still has a distance to travel, but it's good to see the book moving forward after feeling like it was stagnant for way too long. Maddie's story has been one that I've long been half-way delighted and half-way freaked out about, and it's good to be in one of the "delighted" stages again.
And that's it for today, folks.
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