Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never revised a whole novel before. Now that I’ve come out the other side, I can totally see why not everyone does it. It’s emotionally confusing. When you first start off, you’re all, “Ha! I’ve got a red pen. You’re going down!” By the time you finish, well… let’s just say you either come out the other side, or you don’t.
Stage 1: “I’ve got this.” You arm yourself with all of the essentials: a red pen (gel pens if you’re editing a YA novel), snacks (those extra cheddar Goldfish are really easy to shove into your mouth while you’re writing, and Lindt truffles make great rewards as you finish typing up edited chunks of chapters), Post-its, coffee, and headphones. Then you dive in. You figure you’ll be done in about a week, right?
Stage 2: “I have to type all of this?!” You finish reading through a hard copy of your first draft. You’ve made notes on things that need to change, crossed out sections that don’t work or are redundant, circled typos and blatant grammar errors. You’ve got your trusty copy holder or something else to prop up the manuscript while you type up the second draft… and you begin. Then reality sets in. You have to type up twenty-eight whole chapters.
Stage 3: “I’ll be done in four days.” You break up your manuscript into chunks. You create an “editorial” calendar to keep you on track. You have it figured that you’ll be done typing up the edits and revisions in four days, well before your deadline. Hell, you’ll have a whole week after typing it to read through it again and make sure you didn’t miss anything.
Stage 4: “I really have to type all of this?!” You discover that it takes hours to type up seven chapters at a time while reading notes and obeying your inner editor. Lindt truffles become an essential reward system. You stay on schedule, though… for the first two days.
Stage 5: “I’m only behind by three chapters.” You start falling behind. Real life throws a couple of things your way. You run out of underwear and have to do some laundry. Work decides to schedule you six days in a row, two of which are overnight. “Three chapters” becomes “six,” and you take a look at your “editorial” calendar. You tell yourself you still have time, and you adjust your schedule.
Stage 6: “Pfft. I still have a whole four days!” Somehow, your deadline creeps up on you. You’ve fallen more behind. You wonder why you wrote such long freaking chapters. This actually doubles as a good thing, because suddenly you have a super ability to cut out the crap. You only have one chocolate left. All of the other snacks are gone. You’re out of underwear again. (Why doesn’t the laundry do itself?!) You start forgoing feeding yourself.
Stage 7: “I’m in the home stretch!” You’ve got about one and a half days until your deadline, and only six chapters left to type. No problem. The end is in sight. You may be out of snacks, but it’s all good. You’ve got this. Why were you even worried in the first place?
Stage 8: “I totally forgot about the pitch!” You realize, as you’re falling asleep the “night” before the deadline, that you forgot to write the most important part of your novel: the pitch. It’s already 3:15am and you need to get some sleep because your alarm is going to go off at 9am and you have to finish typing up four chapters or so, depending on how much you cut and rearrange. You fall asleep in a terrified state, somewhat like a deer trying to sleep while surrounded by five camps of hunters. When you wake up, you remember that not only did you forget the pitch, but you also forgot that the first round of judging for the contest you’re entering the novel into is solely judged on the pitch you forgot to write. You hug your cat and cry.
Stage 9: “I’ve cut too much!” You spend a couple of hours writing your pitch after doing some researching and prewriting, then you send it to a few people for critique. You turn your attention back to the meat of your project: Getting that bad boy typed up so the judges actually have a novel to read. Finally, after hours of typing, rearranging, and sweating, you near the finish line. You check the guidelines so that you can format… and then realize the minimum word count for submission is 50,000 and your novel is about 400 words under that. You stare in disbelief at the screen. You haven’t come this far only to be slayed by 400 silly little words! You rant to your cat. You rant to your mom. You call your best friend. You wonder why you’re even doing this in the first place. Then you return to your desk…
Stage 10: “Holy shit… I actually did it.” …You somehow make it happen. You squeeze another 400 words out of your poor, exhausted brain, run the manuscript through your formatting checklist, and begin the submission process. Somewhere in all of this, you enter Stage 9.5, a state of pure numbness. You have no idea what is going on. You just go through the submission motions. Then, when it’s all over, you slowly but surely start to relax. You realize that you actually did it. And then you go to bed, hugging your pillow.
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As crazy as this might sound, I want to edit another novel now. I feel like a champion! I actually finished about five hours before the deadline, which for me is amazing. I really thought I’d be working until 11:50pm (the deadline was 11:59pm). I finished in time to go watch the second half of the Super Bowl at my mother-in-law’s. I even had time to grab McDonald’s on the way over.
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