Revision Time

Well, I'm about to start revising my first book, the first Taggert Twins mystery. Anyone who'd like to read the draft and give me feedback, please leave a comment.

To tell you the truth, I'm really sort of scared to start. I'm going to use Holly Lisle's guide to revising a novel as sort of my guidebook, but with a few changes. You wouldn't know it to look at my apartment but I'm really big on organization -- at least when it comes to my writing. For the book I'm about to revise, I have four documents. And that's low. For the book I'm working on now I have, I believe, at least 9. I have things for the synopsis/outline, characters, plotting notes, the actual text, tracking my progress, tracking my scenes and chapters, etc. And I know that as I go through revision, I'm going to want separate lists for notes about plot lines, notes about my characters, notes about ... I don't know what but you get the picture. A single-subject notebook like she mentions in the linked page will just not do for me.

I'm completely anal about some things. What can I say? *shrug*

I'm also scared because, in the writing of the draft, I had a couple of characters and a whole plot line that, because I didn't know what to do with them in the end, I let completely drop off. The characters disappear and the plot line stops at a big ol' brick wall. Goes nowhere. So I know I have to either figure out where to go with that plot line or take it all out -- which is going to leave a massive hole smack in the middle of my story. (Sort of like Holly's dancing bears and clowns or whatever -- if you haven't read her article on Middles, I suggest you do. It's quite amusing.) And I'm no closer to figuring it out now than I was before.

I'm also worried I won't be able to keep up the current pace I have on my current book once I start revising the original.

But it's time for a trip to Wal-Mart so I can get my pretty notebook and my pretty colored pens. And sooner or later I need to get a filing cabinet or file box or something for the fifty bazillion notebooks I have floating around my apartment. They have fic from at least seven different fandoms and are in varying states of disarray. They need to go hide somewhere before they drive me insane. Hmm. Maybe something else to buy at Wal-mart.

On another topic, I totally didn't realize how thick 208 pages can be. And, dummy that I am, I didn't realize until I'd already printed 60 pages that I hadn't put in page numbers. Pray to god that I don't drop the damn thing or hold it too close to a fan. (Yikes)