I know, I don’t traditionally post on Saturdays. But let’s face it. Technically for me it’s Friday night. And I just had to share happy news. Okay, not that happy—but happy for me all the same. I just made it to the last chapter of my novel on edits and scene rewrites, which means I’ll have some time for edits before Pitch Wars.
WHY IS THAT HAPPY NEWS?
Because I’ve been stressing this whole week over whether or not I was going to make the deadline, and here I am MAKING the deadline! Wahoo! My mentor wanted a word count by this weekend, although she’s fabulous and probably could have stretched it another day or two, should I have needed. But I really wanted some time for as many final polishes as I could sneak in. Some of the scene rewrites probably didn’t get as hard a look as they could. It’s not as easy to edit while you’re writing. That’s not to say you shouldn’t edit while writing, I’m just saying one more is for creativity, the other mode is for making things pretty.
Plus, this is the final chapter, and I like the idea of having a day to work on it, should I need. And there’s a few things I realized need fixing story wise, not complex things, just extra bits I need to weave in so things make sense.
But I wanted to celebrate the progress I’ve made already. As of right now I predict SHADE will be about 87,000 words, not bad for epic fantasy. I’m hoping I can shave it down to 86,000 with polishing. We’ll see. Why does word count matter? Because people, an agent will judge your marketability based on your word count. I went from 98,000 to 87,000, which means I’m that much further from the dreaded 100,000 mark. (This is generally seen as a sign to run in the other direction for most agents when looking at new novelists). Plus I feel like the story is more succinct and stronger than it was, so I’m happy to have made so many changes (and it such a short amount of time, too. Phew…)
I’ll post again Monday with how things are looking. I’ll put on my word economizing glasses and see what I can’t pull out of it and hopefully make that 86K goal. It just feels nicer to me. It’s looking to total 26 chapters. I don’t think that’ll budge unless I split a chapter in half. And then come Wednesday…
PITCH WARS
I hope your writing is going well this weekend too. Do any of you have Monday off? You know I’m going to be editing like a madwoman. Hooray for progress! See you Monday!
Lit and Scribbles with Jae 
Congratulations on keeping up with your goals!
–JW
Thanks! I hope yours are going well too!
Congratulations – it’s a wonderful feeling to beat a deadline. I’m doing the same thing right now. I hope I’m as successful as you.
Go head with your bad self! Even after your sub is in I would advise you keep tweaking. With such a huge edit, you probably missed some things. Go back and take a look. If anything, it’ll help kill time until the contest and you may find a few obvious mistakes.
I’d tell you not to be nervous…somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen. Enjoy the experience. You’ve earned it. No matter what happens on Wednesday, you’ve already won. Your next project will be that much stronger, and easier because of this experience. Definitely worth the price of admission. 😉
I’ll be wishing you the best of luck. And lots of Blues Brothers dancing because they are awesome!
Yeah, I’m not sick of it yet, which means there’s more work to be done. Thanks for being my great supportive friend through all of this. I’ve already won getting a better story out of it. And now I’m a stronger writer than I was before. Happy dance!
Congrats that is a big accomplishment!
Thanks! I’m glad I have great blogging buddies like you to celebrate with! 😀
Awesome you! Wow, that’s quite inspirational for me to go on and edit my own novel. *pokes self* 😀
You can do it! And it’s always worth it!
Well done on your editing. I’m in the middle of my 3rd draft and hoping to shave a few thousand words off the total. I don’t work Monday’s so that is always a writing day for me 🙂
Happy writing.
I’m envious. Mondays off would be so nice. Nice work on the third draft! Feels good to get it in a better place doesn’t it? Glad we can celebrate together!
Great news and Good Job. It is a tough thing that you are doing and you are getting there quickly.
Of course the bad news is that when you are done with this, you will get started on number 2! Yea, again great job.
That’s not bad news for me. I may be crazy, but I’d love to start working on Book 2. I already have do many ideas bouncing around. Do you ever have those says where you feel like ideas won’t stop pestering you?
Awesome news!!
Thanks!
I featured you this week as one of my favorite blogs 🙂
Aw, thanks! You’re too kind. 🙂
Wooohooo! Congratulations oh writerly/editoryly one. 😉
Nice Job sista!!! I am excited to hear how PW goes 😀
Thanks!
Nice! I’ll be poking around to see what goes down in the agent round!
Hopefully I’ll have good news to report. Keep them fingers crossed for me will you? 😀