I arrived home from work yesterday to find a big fat package waiting for me. Insert squee here. Is it weird that I’m so excited to see my work pulled apart and all my weaknesses show up by someone?
Anyway, this is a new experience for me – having to sit down and go through a novel at such a painstaking level (although I did receive some of the nicest words a writer can – a light line-edit, cause the spelling and grammar are pretty right :)). So I thought I would document here my plans for how I’m going to do this, and then at the end let you know how it went.
I want to have the edits done and in the mail by January 4, so I’m free to focus on book two at the retreat (that’s more than a week before deadline). So, according to my work roster, between now and January 3 I’ve got seven full days off work, and four half days. That’s a total of 11 writing sessions. Now, I’m planning on taking both Christmas and Boxing Day off, so that leaves me with nine sessions.
So, this week goes a little like this – today I’m going to read through the edits, make notes to myself, and then choof on off to work this afternoon and let things simmer. Tomorrow and Thursday will be all day working on the manuscript. Then I get Friday, Saturday and Sunday away from it (again, more time for ideas to simmer).
The following week, I work on the manuscript all day Monday. Tuesday I’m at work early, and I hope to then work on the manuscript in the afternoon (I’ve never managed that before, so will be interesting to see if I can). Wednesday it’s manuscript in the morning, supermarket in the afternoon and then Thursday (NYE) I’m working all day (another opportunity for things to simmer).
Friday’s another all-dayer, then manuscript Saturday morning and work in the afternoon. Hopefully by the time I get to Sunday January 3 (my last full dayer), I’ll be in a position to do all the picky stuff, and have it finalised to pop into the mail on Monday.
I read the edit letter last night, and there’s a couple of things that my editor mentioned that have intrigued me, particularly in light of some of the postings I’ve been doing lately about feminism. I’m really looking forward to going through the manuscript and seeing exactly where the things she’s noticed are occurring and what they mean, about me and about the story.
Ah, I love being a writer.