September's Revision Begins...

Hey! How are you today? Can you believe we're halfway into this month already? Yikes. Time sure moves fast. 😕

Today, I'm not going to dwell on the Covid situation for long because we all know that between how infectious this Delta strain is, the useless government's lack of leadership, anti-vaxxers and selfish assholes, things aren't getting any better. Our numbers are constantly over 1k daily and this ridiculous never-ending mockdown just isn't working. Ugh.

Anyway, I took a three-week break after my latest revision WIP. So, it was finally time to get stuck into the next project on my 2021 Revision List. 📝

This time I'm tackling a YA horror novel I wrote back in September 2018 and is tentatively titled, Monsters. This is a story about a family going through a really bad time. It deals with dark family secrets, Greek mythology and monsters. It's a bit of a tragedy full of complicated relationships.

Here's how I went:

• Friday: 21/215pgs (77,834w)
• Monday: 65/215pgs (77,621w)
• Tuesday: 117/211pgs (76,544w)
• Wednesday: 173/206pgs (74,797w)
• Thursday: 202pgs / 73,600w

As you can see, I ended up cutting quite a bit. Phew. I'm not afraid to chop away chunks of words if it makes the story better and/or stronger.

Just like Possess, going back to this novel was a little strange because I didn't remember so much of what actually happens. Seriously, a few of the mystery threads had me stumped until everything was revealed. I like to have some distance after a first draft, but I reckon that a three-year break might be a bit too long. 😅

I mentioned this last time, and have to touch on it again because I think this will keep happening with my older WIPs. The second draft ends up being more of a reunion, a chance for me to catch up. LMAO. This is when I find myself fixing a lot of the odd sentences/phrasing and cutting anything that sounds wrong. I deleted over 4k words during this draft, including the Epilogue I don't think it needs. 

I'll probably end up adding words during the third draft because there are a several scenes and situations that definitely need a bit of tweaking. And of course, I've already started a Revision List.

These older stories are turning out to be hard work, but totally worth it. 😅

Well, it looks like I'll be taking a three-day break before tackling the third draft on Monday. I'm actually looking forward to getting stuck into this new version, and really want to sharpen/tighten everything even more.

Have a great day!