August's Revision Begins...

Hey! How are you today? How is this week treating you?

So, our state (NSW) is still on mockdown and will stay this way until the end of this month. For us, that means staying the hell away from everyone, wearing masks as soon as we step out of the apartment, buying groceries once a week and going for daily walks when hubby starts work and when he finishes. That's it.

I can't believe we're worse off now than we were at the beginning of this shitty pandemic. 😒

Anyway, enough about the sad state of this selfish world. 

A new month is here and after taking the whole of July off, it was time to get back to my 2021 Revision Plan. 📝

This time, I got stuck into my tentatively titled novel, Possess, which is a YA horror story I wrote back in September 2017. The first draft word count was 76,971 and it deals with one of my most fave tropes: demonic possession. But it's ultimately about family, friendship, inner strength and identity.

Here's my progress:

• Friday: 24/201pgs (77,492w)
• Monday: 83/202pgs (77,438w) 
• Tuesday: 145/201pgs (76,969w)
• Wednesday: 190/201pgs (76,627w) 
• Thursday: 195pgs / 74,481w

Oh boy, going back to this draft was like reconnecting with a strange WIP I hadn't seen in AGES! We had to get to know each other all over again. Most of the events were familiar—I mean, I did write them—but some of the stuff was a total surprise. That's the bad and good thing about putting a story aside for too long. LOL.

I'm finding that novels I wrote two+ years ago require a fast and sharp get-down-to-business second draft. This covers the basics, as well as getting to know my story and characters all over again. When I do this, my brain starts working overtime and the story starts to fill my (almost) every waking moment.

That's when the fun starts, and when things click into place. Only then can I make better sense of the character's motivations, the antagonist/s, etc. It might sound like a strange process, but I enjoy the challenge. Especially if I believe in the story, and I definitely believe in this one. 😊

Another thing I did during this draft is change the ending, which involved changing a certain relationship dynamic throughout. I think it works much better this way, but also meant I had to delete a chapter, scrapped the original Epilogue and wrote a new one. You know what? I'm really happy with how it all turned out.

Of course, I've already started a Third Draft Revision List because there's plenty left to smooth out, but I'm a lot happier with this story now.

The revision process is a LOT of hard work, but man, it's always so worth it.

Well, I guess that means I get a three-day break from this novel. Yay. I'm going to enjoy that time, while looking forward to the next stage next week...

Have a great day!!