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Thursday 15 September 2022

Revision Time!


Hey! Long time no blog, huh?

So, how are you? What's new? What have you been up to? 😁

After getting several revision drafts done in a row, I decided to take most of August off, and spent it with my awesome husband while he was between jobs. It was a lovely break and prepared me for the final Revision Project. Yay.

This time I tackled a YA horror novel that deals with urban legends/myths, but has a demonic twist. I really enjoyed writing the first draft of Urban back in 2017, so I was looking forward to finding out if I still felt that way. Five years away from this story put a lot of distance between the original concept/idea and, although I still liked a lot of what I read, I spotted too many problems.

Here's how my week turned out:

  • Monday: 37/182pgs (69,041w)
  • Tuesday: 74/178pgs (66,930w)
  • Wednesday: 104/169pgs (63,050w)
  • Thursday: 160pgs/60,398w

Well, the second draft is done.

As you can see, there was quite a bit of word-cutting done during this draft. Excess, things that didn't need to be there, and plenty of other probs that stood out.

Yeah, this revision didn't work out the same way as the others.

I mean, there's a lot to like about this tale because so much of it is essentially a series of stories within the main story. But for some reason, the thread that strings it all together wasn't as strong as I remember. 😧

Looks like I've reached the stage where I have to admit to myself that this novel isn't working.

I initially started thinking about this as early as Tuesday, which is a shame. This situation reminds me of something I said to my husband after watching the movie, Ouija. I told him that although there were quite a few cool ideas/concepts that I really liked, the overall story didn't work.

Well, that's exactly how I feel about Urban.

So, after reaching the end and thinking about it, I've decided not to continue the revision process for this novel. Instead, I'll probably cannibalize chunks from this draft and will turn them into shorter stories. Actually, there's one particular creepy scene that I think will work great as a short story. And other bits that can be added to some of my other future ideas.

So, it's not a total loss. 😊

Now that I've completed the Revision Project List, I can tally the total number of words I cut this year. Between this draft (-9,637w), June's novel (-17,056w), the novella I revised in May (-27,927w) and March (-24,600w), as well as February's (-25,203w), I've now cut a total of 104,423 words this year! Yikes!!

Although, since I'm scrapping this novel, one could easily consider the entire word count cut. 😬

Oh, and another great thing about completing this project is that I can update my Revision List for the last time:
  • April 2021: Full edit of Wall of Dolls
  • May 2021: Full revision of Destiny
  • June 2021: Full revision of Victoria
  • August 2021: Full revision of Possess
  • September 2021: Full revision of Monsters
  • February 2022: Full revision of Cosmic
  • March 2022: Full revision of Madness
  • May 2022: First edit of Possess
  • May 2022: Full revision of Summer
  • June 2022: Full revision of Neon
  • July 2022: Final edit of Possess
  • July/August 2022: Full revision of Stuck
  • September 2022: Second draft revision of Urban done before abandoning the novel.

Well, I might be finishing this Revision Quest on a bittersweet note, but I'm still super excited to have reached The End of a long task I set for myself last year. 😁🎉

All that's left to do is sorting my files. Then, I look forward to getting stuck into a bunch of new projects because the writing never ends.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy the next three days with hubby before he starts a new job. 

Have an awesome day!


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