Last year, I made a New Year’s resolution that I wanted to finish my novel by the end of 2022. I’m very proud to say that I did that! Hooray! It was literally December 31, a few hours before midnight, but I got it done!
MY FIRST NOVEL IS FINISHED, Y’ALL!!!!!!
I put it aside for a few months with the intention to begin edits in March. I’ve been slowly but surely making progress on that.
My original chapters were upwards of 6k words in length. I’ve gotten most of them down to a much more manageable 4k to 5k, on average. Cutting out excess or unnecessary words feels so good! Especially if I can exchange them for better ones.
As I’m going through my novel a second time, I notice all the places where things could be better. I also see where things don’t quite fit or don’t add to the story the way I want them to. Which is fine; I can totally fix those things! I’m not above axing entire pages because they’re unnecessary. My problem comes when I have to figure out what to replace those pages with… it’s like writing the chapter all over again.
My hope is that I’ll finish editing this by the beginning of autumn. Once it’s done, I’ll print it out and hand it off to my volunteer alpha readers (aka friends I’ve bullied into agreeing to help me) and we’ll start round 2 edits.
I’m so excited!
Tiny Angry Female 