2 of 4

Over the weekend I managed to finish the second draft of my current work-in-progress. I came up a little under the word count I had originally intended, but ultimately the story ended exactly where it needed too so I’m not too upset by it. Now that I’ve officially finished this draft I’ve started to begin the task of reading over what i have before I begin my third round of edits. This is the first time I’ve really read over every line without making changes as I do so, and I have to say it’s sort of a bizarre experience. I managed within the first day to get all the way up to chapter four before I decided to take a break, and I’ve learned quite a bit in the process about my own book and what still needs to be done before I can say the book is completely finished. It’s exciting and different because I chose a different avenue for how I edited the book this time around, and it’s interesting to see how it’s working out for me thus far. It’s weird not fixing certain things that I can already find problems with and my fingers are already itching for the red pen to make corrections, but I’m trying to make the effort to read through the book from start to finish, before I start any major changes.

It’s one of the more difficult aspects of this new writing process but one that I think is going to prove ultimately more beneficial to me in the long run. The common wisdom regarding book editing is that it should take about four or five drafts depending on the novel, which means depending on how much I manage to get done in this latest draft I shouldn’t have much more than one or two more to go. Every novel is different, but nevertheless I am excited to be starting official edits (whereas the last draft was largely rewrites).