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Pace myself

Yesterday I had a few extra hours to myself. The wife and kiddo had volleyball-related team bonding duties that I was free to skip. My plan was to sit down and bury myself in edits on the first draft of the novel. Since Scrivener calculates an estimated reading time of 5:37 for my draft, I figured 8 hours was a good editing estimate. Since I had 6 hours available yesterday, I planned to knock out the first 75% of the job. Then it would be cruising through the weekend and reaching Monday with the first edit done.

This was a bad idea. The problem is (entirely predictable) boredom. When writing your first draft, everything is still new and fresh. When editing during the writing process, the changes you make affect how you direct your creativity. But once the draft is done and the post-draft editing begins, it’s just work. While I will most certainly add scenes later to fill in holes and make changes that require a few creative re-writes, right now I’m simply identifying those needs while sharpening up the prose. It’s work, and it’s work on a story I already know well, which is only fun in small chunks.

At about 4 hours (1 hr early, 3 hrs late), I was thoroughly sick of it. Wednesday is a more reasonable target for a completed first edit, I think. At that point, I’ll upload it to FedEx Office, get a nice bound version of it – double spaced for editing ease – and set it on the shelf. Four weeks away seems like a reasonable amount of time to create adequate distance but I’ll play that by ear. Maybe six weeks is better.

It seems a little odd to be thinking of possibilities for a second book right now, but what else will I do during the waiting period for this novel?

1 thought on “Pace myself”

  1. Pingback: The hurdles were the scenes themselves – Avid Lad

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