Okay. Revisions are out the door (or out the email box, more accurately). Not too bad at all. I cut ten pages, and strengthened some scenes, and answered most, maybe even all, of my editor’s questions. *waves a little flag*
Next up: finish the front material for this book and send it in by the end of the day. But before that, I’m going to get out of the house for a while, and *after* that I think I’m going to read a book. I have about a zillion to choose from.
*scoots off*
I’ll be moving onto revisions shortly for my first novel.
Got any pertinent advice?
Hi. I found you journal by accident and enjoyed reading it. The fact that I enjoyed your journal made me buy Urban Shaman. And I enjoyed it as well as the following Walker Papers. I hope you won’t mind if I friend ya :-)
Of course I don’t mind. :) Welcome!
The editor’s probably right. :)
Oh, that much is certain.
Slightly more helpfully, perhaps:
I find it much, much easier to do initial revisions–even just scribbling “this is where it needs work”–on a print-out instead of on-screen. I just miss stuff when I’m looking at it electronically.
Print the manuscript out in a different font than the one you write in. It’s amazing how much that helps me *see* the words. (This is new. I only discovered it a couple months ago.)
Get up and walk around every fifty pages or so. It really helps the brain to not fall asleep.
This is an opportunity to tighten up wordy sentences and fix bad ones. People say to read your material aloud. I personally…well. To me the experience of reading a book aloud is very different from reading it on the page. If I’m reading my own material aloud I edit as I go along, but what I read out loud does not necessarily, in my opinion, read correctly if applied to the page. So if there are passages you think might be awkward, read them aloud (or at least in a mumble, but something vocalized so you’re really paying attention to the words), because it will help you start to understand why it’s awkward. Also, it *really* helps you catch repetitive words and phrases.
Um. That’s all I can think of right now. :)