Thursday, March 29, 2012

Three Weeks Later...

I made grand plans for my Spring Break, as you may recall. I claimed that I was, over 11 days, going to try to (start and) finish first-pass revisions on my MS.

The 11 days came and went, and I did make hella good progress. I revised what ended up being 16 out of 24 chapters.

Last night, I finished.

Before the reflection, here are some fun stats:

Original draft word count: 86,115
Second draft word count: 88,362

Number of chapter totally cut: 3
Number of chapters totally re-written or added new: 5

I couldn't even begin to estimate how many new words I wrote, beyond the entirely new chapters. There isn't a chapter in the book that hasn't been tweaked, and most of them got some pretty serious scene re-vamps.

So, this has been my first foray into revising a novel. Honestly, I really like it. Drafting is stressful for me, and it's been nice to finally be on the other side: the path is already laid; I'm just planting flowers. (Is that a terrible analogy for it?) Really, I was doing more than planting flowers. I'd thought my "few" ideas for changes would require minor rewrites, but obviously that did not come to be.

And I came up with even more new ideas as I rewrote and wrote new chapters and scenes, so now I'll be going back to add in the needed groundwork for those ideas...

I suppose that will go on for a while until I've gotten all my threads neatly tucked. Then I get to make sentences pretty.

As for when that will be, I'm not sure yet. The semester is hurtling toward an end. I have to write 2 care plans in the next 3 weeks and take one more Pharmacology test.

Then we have the joy of having 2 finals for each nursing course and my A & P final and then... I'm done with my first year of nursing school. I'll be half-way done.

Holy crap.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Congrats on the revisions!!!! I'm so excited for you, getting to the end. You continue to inspire me :)) Good luck on finishing up the school semester. Rock those care plans and test/finals.

My kids start Spring Break tonight. So, I guess this is the last day of MY vacation! hahaha

Linda G. said...

You are just blazing through your writing AND nursing school! You rock. :)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Congratulations, Summer! The drafting stage stresses me as well. I like to be finished with that and have the story laid out before me so I can really see it. As you said, the path is laid.

Old Kitty said...

You have surpassed yourself, amazing Summer!! Yay for you!!!

Take care
x

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you made some excellent progress. Congrats!

Matthew MacNish said...

Congrats! I always thought finishing a draft of a novel would be the most exciting thing. That is, until I actually finished revising one.

Saumya said...

What great revisions! And so exciting that you're almost done with your first year. You have a lot to celebrate :)

Kristi said...

Woohoo on manuscript revisions! Why is it they always take longer than originally planned?

Congrats!!!

Lola Sharp said...

Yay for finishing draft two! :)

I know you'll do marvelous on your finals.

I hope E and kitties and you and the house etc. are all doing well.

Love,
L

Sarah Ahiers said...

This is why i need a list of scenes before i write a first draft, so it's less stressful and i have to do less cleanup.
YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR!
I would get bored and give up if i had to do all that work you did.
Also, i know you'll pwn those finals

Jacqueline Howett said...

Wow! quite a balancing act. You really have achieved a lot.

With all that energy, I think I'd believe you, if you told me you just run rings around the moon.

Congratulations girl!

ben268 said...

I feel your pain with finals. Just comming up. Thank goodness this is the last day of classes so I can buckle down and start studying.

congrats on your novel by the way.