Trucking Along

I haven't had a chance to blog lately, but the good news is that I've been keeping up with my editing. I worked eight hours straight on Friday, and seven hours on Sunday. I got a massive amount of work done, deleted chunks, combined some chapters, moved some things around, and added more than 2000 words. Each time I read through it again, I find something else I want to do.

I'm eager to get it out to some "beta readers," but I'm also terrified of what they're going to think. It seems the closer I get to being done, the more frightened and insecure I get about what I'm doing. I'm worried the pacing won't be right, that the story isn't as exciting as it should be. I'm not going to know until I send it out to people, and I don't think I can figure it out on my own anymore after reading it so many times. I know it so intimately that I fly through it when reading it.

I'm terribly excited about the progress. It felt so good to get so much done, to really be working the novel. I didn't struggle with what I was having to do, and even carving out those chunks didn't hurt, because I felt good about the changes I was making. A big part of me wants to be continuing the story already, but I need to finish this editing first. I don't know if established authors can do both at once, but I get nervous about working on multiple projects at once. I just need to hold on and get through the editing.

Speaking of the editing, I'm finding it reassuring that an author at the conference last year said the writing of the novel takes less time than the editing. If not, I'd be getting paranoid that I was one of those poor writers who gets stuck in an editing loop where they just keep editing, changing things, changing from third person to first person, etc. However, I'm keeping on my time line, and I'm pleased with that.

I've registered for the conference this year, and I'm excited to go! Last year, the classes I chose to attend were all about how to write, creativity, that sort of thing. This year, I actually get to focus on classes having to do with making pitches and getting published. That's progress I'm proud of.