Dispatch #2 from the Revision Trenches
I don’t hike, but I feel as I come to the end of the work on the draft of my next book it’s much like reaching the summit of a decent size mountain. I get to pause and bask in the sense of accomplishment, but even as I do so, I see the path back down to the ground below, and hope it will be easier going down opposed to the climb.
I believe I have reached the end of the major work for my current project. To get there was hard going. The rest of my summer had been enveloped with cycles of edits and revisions ending with Labor’s Day Weekend editing marathon where I spent the long weekend going through the entire book in one go. I broke the book up into thirds, planned out my breaks, utilized the pomodoro technique, and got down to business. It was lovely weekend despite the hard work - and it was very phsyical I was even doing stretching before I got into evening session! I also hit the page count I wanted to reach for each day. Of everything that was the best thing to come out the weekeend. It’s a ign the book is in its final draft stages because it meant I was able to get through large sections of the book without wanting to rewrite everything.
Now the book resting for just a little bit, before I do one final look. But this is just the polishing of key scenes, last checks for spelling and grammar, and tweaks to dialogue. It’s feels too early to say the book is done, but it’s definitely at a state that I’m not afraid to let others look.
While the book is resting, so I am. This is the first free weekend I had in months and I had to force myself to play a video games just to get away from anything book related so I can actually relax. But after focusing so intensely on something for so long to suddenly have nothing, makes you itch to do some other task like starting a new story idea you’ve been mulling over.
Resting doesn’t just mean taking a brief respite from writing, it also means trying to adjust my sleep scheudle. Besides making myself go to bed a half-hour earlier, I’ve also pulled a few paperbacks off my bookshelf to sit on my nightstand so I could grab that intsead of reading book off my tablet.
As for what’s next, production for The Improvisers will be ramping up soon I believe. Don’t have exact dates to share yet, other than forthcoming in the next year. But I have been some nice cover shaped things recently. I’ll be interesting to switch gears back to this book, but I spent enough time away from it I’m ready to bring it over the finish line!
Outside of writing I’ll also be doing a few fun things this fall.
At the end of this month I’ll be part an “Connecting Flight” Genre Benders and Blenders on September 30th @ 1pm PT. I’ll be chatting with a group fantastic writers as we discuss the tropes and how the break them and more. (Note this is part of 2023 Nebula programming, so if didn’t go this year you’ll have to register for the post-conference).