For the past few months, I’ve been working on editing one of my novels and preparing it so I can release it into the terrifying world of agents and editors. This is the novel that I finished writing about this time last year, and I left it since then to let myself forget as much of it as I could. That way, I could return to it with fresh eyes, and begin to edit, which is exactly what I did. And I gotta say, it has been an amazing journey.First of all, it was way better than I was expecting it to be. Scenes that I remembered wrinkling my nose at right after writing them turned out to be not that deserving of a nose-wrinkle, all easy fixes. I discovered, upon my first reading after this period of forgetting the story, that I had created an entire world! That was the most exciting part – this novel actually came together well! It’s a legit, full-on story.
I think I mentioned before that I loved writing these characters, and that remains true. These characters are some of the craziest, most disturbing, most fun characters I’ve ever written, and I love them all. In fact, I love them so much, that I don’t want to let them go! I’ve started writing background scenes for a lot of these characters – how they first met each other, how they became what they are – stuff that isn’t in this story, but were things that I had thought about and decided about them. I believe that this will help me not only to better shape them in my current novel, but it also provides content for a prequel, if I decide I want to write one (which I have considered, simply because I love writing these characters so much).
It’s been a blast editing this novel. I added in a lot of scenes that I think enhance and develop the story more than what I had written in my first draft. I’ve better flushed out the story line and the characters, I’ve put more links between them all, and I’ve really improved on this world that I’d created!
There’s still work to be done, for sure. I think I’m one of those writers that can reread something a dozen times, and almost always be able to find a word I want to adjust, or a sentence I want to alter. But I’m definitely close, the closest I have ever been to achieving an all and complete manuscript. It just needs a little tidying up here and there.
I can’t wait to start really pushing for this book to be published. I’ve put some feelers out already, but I won’t go full-swing until I feel it’s fully ready. My fingers are, as ever, crossed that this will be my one. My one book to start it all: to be published, and to begin a career in writing that I have dreamed about ever since I was little. I think I can do it.
I am, with nervous trepidation, going at last for my dream.
violetsams 