The Starving Novelist
 
That's exactly what I'm doing.  I am literally pushing myself every night to revise/proof my ms.  Like I said in my previous blog entry, it is going so excruciatingly slllloooooow.  I'm not sure what happened to the patience I had a year ago while writing my book, but it's long gone.  Replacing it, is this never ending pang of anxienty.  I know in the end, it'll be worth it.  Even if nothing becomes of it, at least I'll know I did my best, and I in the end, that's all that matters (so they say). 

I read on someone's blog (can't remember whose- sorry!) that you're supposed to wait six weeks after completing your first draft of your ms, before you start reading and revising it.  All I can say is, I WISH I HAD KNOWN THIS SIX MONTHS AGO!!!!  This would've saved me so much time and frustration.  I literally starting "revising" the day after I finished it.  My ms was like my newborn baby- "perfect and flawless" in my eyes.  I zipped through my ms in probably a week (as opposed to the two months+ it's taking me this time).  Sure, I noticed some typos, and maybe a couple gramatical errors, but other than that, I thought it sparkled <supressing laughter>.    Needless to say, lesson learned.

Just keep revising, revising, revising . . .

Oh, by the way, just a note to the one or two people who follow my blog-  I probably won't be posting any more entries until after the Holidays.   Christmas (and everything that goes along with it) is sucking up all my time.  Not to mention, I'm REALLY tired of writing about REVISING, and hopefully this will be my last entry regarding the topic ;o) 

Happy Holidays to all!!
 
I haven't posted much, because as stated above, I've been revising (again . . .).  I've yet to hear from the two agents who currently have my ms, but I've decided to start on the revisions anyways.  The storyline is still the same, but I have been doing more slicing and dicing than a sous chef. 

Deep down, I believe my first chapter was killing me- I've had a couple agents tell me so, and according to everything I've read online, my opening chapter committed just about every sin a first chapter can commit (too much backstory, off-putting to the reader, etc.).  Sooo . . . I totally gutted it.  Of course, there were parts I really liked (and that are important to the story), so I'm going to plug those in at different spots throughout the ms. 

I am very surprised by how long this revision process is taking me.  At the rate I'm going, I figure I won't be done proofing for another six weeks.  The difference this time?  Well, I'm really taking my time to read through each chapter with "cold eyes."  The previous times I proofread, I was mostly concerned with making sure the plot flowed nicely, and stayed on course.  This time, I want to make sure every sentence sparkles, which means, taking out all the "well's, really's, that's, just's, etc."  Needless to say, it's AMAZING how "wordy" of a writer I tend to be, and how many mistakes you can find when you change your perception.  I'm reading each chapter approximately three times, and each time, I find something . . .  

At the end of this journey, I want to be able to say, I did everything I could to get my ms represented/published.  I'm not ready to give up on her yet!  The girl sitting on the bleechers is getting a make-over, and hopefully when she's all done, she won't be sitting on the bleechers very long!