Motivational Blogging
Motivational in that I’m trying to motivate myself. I got the first round of edits back from my editor yesterday and although I don’t disagree with a damn thing she said – and in fact – told her when I sent the MS to her that I needed help with the problems she pointed out (this is a content edit, not a line edit or proofread), for some reason when she agreed with me and offered said suggestions that I had explicitly asked for, it hurt my feels.
That doesn’t even begin to make sense, does it?
I guess my delusional secret self was really hoping she’d write back and say, “Holy Odin, Amy! This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever read. The only thing I’d change is to maybe make it…longer. MORE WORDS! YOU HAVE THE BEST WORDS! MAYBE MAKE THEM YUGER! BIGLY WORDS!” or something. I’m not even sure.
The problems that she explicitly pointed out have two main causes:
- This is the very first full-length novel that I will admit to having finished. It was a learning process and I wrote too many words. My first draft was 149K words. That’s two books. My final draft that I sent it was a good deal shorter, but not short enough but I’d gotten to the point where I couldn’t see anything to cut anymore and knew that the first 1/3 of the book could stand some major fat trimming.
- Going back to the whole “my first time” issue – I am a much tighter writer (hee – that rhymes! maybe I should become a poet instead) now. Much. I am more skilled at both crafting a story and telling it efficiently.
So, now I have a major rewrite coming. This is not a process I anticipate needing as much with all subsequent books in the series as they are already in much better shape.
This makes me feel a little bit like just quitting. Deleting all the files. Burning my hard drives. Erasing the cloud. Making it rain or something. I don’t really know how the cloud works.
I know that’s ridiculous and the fact that the editor opened with some really nice things to say about my plot, characters, and overall style probably should hold more weight than the ache I feel at not being perfect 100% of the time, especially on my first go, but emotions are not logical, no matter how much I wish they were.
So today is regrouping. Planning. Scheduling.
Tomorrow starts my month of getting shit done. If Hillary Clinton can campaign with pneumonia and become the first female president of the United States (just putting it out there), I can simultaneously write the 50,000 words I need to finish my current WIP (be my NaNoWriMo buddy!), edit this other book so that I can prep it for publication by the end of the year and finally show everyone the gorgeous cover, and find a damn job so that I don’t have to live in a box starting 12/1.
Right? RIGHT!?
