It’s been months (again) since I updated, and it was unintentional. Life has a way of reprioritizing day-to-day events, and my revision process took a step to the back for a month or so.
But, I have picked it up again, and I’m nearly 66% through draft two. And, during this draft, I’m eating my words. Though I never wrote it out anywhere, I was cocky enough to think that my second draft would not drastically change from my first, but it has. I cut three semi-important characters, the entire catalyst of the story changed, and I cut thousands (and thousands) of words. I’m writing this draft nearly from scratch. I’m copying and pasting some, but even those scenes are altered from their original state. If I handed someone both drafts, the first would be a shadow of the second.
I’m also in a bit of a race against time.
I have a deadline of August 31st to finish my book. Not this second draft, this entire book. It needs to be completely polished, edited, fact-checked, and sparkling.
I’m planning on submitting to Pitch Wars this year. If you want to learn more go ahead and click the link, but in short, it’s a mentorship program for non-agented writers. If a mentor (an industry professional) selects a writer’s manuscript, the writer gets to work with the mentor for three months to polish the manuscript farther in order to participate in an “agent showcase” at the end of that time period with hopes of landing representation.
It would be huge for a mentor to choose my manuscript, but it also means that I need to act like my manuscript needs to be ready to query (send out letters to seek representation by agents) by the end of the summer.
I have some major work to do before then. As it is, my book is still a jumble. I finally (finally) solidified an outline that I’m confident in, but that means I still have to go back in this draft I’m working on and change/delete scenes. I may even need to cut two more characters. It’s daunting, but it also can be doable.
I keep reminding myself that I serve a huge God, and He has already made so many impossibilities in this process possible.
It’s been a journey, to say the least. And I’m still looking at the August deadline in a bit of disbelief. If I reach that deadline and submit to Pitchwars, it will have been just over 18 months from the emanation of this idea to its “completion.” That, my friends, is insane.
I have been dreaming about reaching this goal for twenty-three years, and I am sitting on the cusp of its realization.
It’s a beautiful thing.
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