Hey everyone! It has been a while. 2019 has been a crazy year so far for me. I can’t believe we’re already into the second week of October!
Notable things that have happened thus far: I’ve attended 6 different weddings so far and I still have 2 more before the end of the year. I’m less than 2 weeks away from running another half-marathon. We painted/rearranged our living room in one weekend as well as painted 2 bathrooms. I’ve been working a part-time job 3 days a week since April. Lastly, I finished my first draft of my book!
Writing is hard. But writing a novel- that’s an entirely different level of hard. Trying to remember every little detail and creating good flow is harder than I could have ever imagined. Not that I didn’t already respect authors, but I have a hell of a lot more respect for them now and how much time and effort it takes into finishing up a novel.
I finished my first draft at the end of August at about 61K words and was over the moon! My friend/cousin-in-law Tessa warned me that my first draft would be terrible- in fact, most first drafts are pretty terrible. I also saw things like that on Pinterest but I never believed that completely. Boy, did I learn a hard lesson!
I took about 2 weeks or so away from my book once I finished and focused more of my attention on running and freelance writing. But when I reread it for the first time a few weeks later, I realized how terrible it actually was!
There were plot holes and continuity errors and other details that I hadn’t quite worked out yet that made the story structure so awkward! Not to mention entirely too much dialogue- some of which I literally had to skim through because it was extremely cheesy.
So I reread it a second time, this time making notes of things that I knew I needed to fix, and I came up with about 8 pages of notes! Yikes!
I remember feeling immeasurably overwhelmed after writing those notes. I mean, where would I even start? How would I check everything off on my lists? What part would I focus on first?
Well, I’m happy to say that, at least for me, I fell into a sort of rhythm and figured out how I needed to approach my first revision.
I’ve only been editing for a few weeks now, but I’m really just trying to embrace the whole process. It’s absolutely daunting, but I’m feeling very motivated to get this book squared away. I started writing this nearly three or so years ago and only got back to it last December, so it’s time this story is told. I’m only into Chapter 2 right now so I still have a long road to go, but I’m looking forward to finishing it and sharing it with the world.
With that being said, I’m trying to start blogging more often from here on out (at least once a week- hopefully two), so you’ll likely see much more of me from here on out. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am!
Until next time,
Emily
P.S.- Are you a writer? If so, I’d love to hear any tips/tricks you have up your sleeve!
Emily's Pensieve 