But I got it written! Yes, folks, I have finished my rough draft of SKIN! (synopsis pending)
It was a slippery sucker—the ending kept changing on me, the theme just wouldn't cooperate, and the main character kept hounding me to wrap things up. But I pulled most of my loose ends together, sat my butt on the couch with headphones in, and tapped laptop keys with a vengeance until I had an ending!
I'm never happy with my first ending, so it'll probably change, but that's just the denouement. My final conflict is completely wrapped up in a way that satisfies me (for now), and I'm sensing the emergence of a theme. All in all, I'm excited to get back to work on it. But not just yet.
Now that I'm finished, I'm going to try to relax, crit a few manuscript I've been promising to do for weeks, read some books (got any recommendations?)... and do a hell of a lot more research before I get to editing.
I know that if I try to jump back in and start editing now, my eyes will just skip over the words, too familiar with them to see what changes they need. Like when my husband gets in the car and looks in the rear view, and asks me why I didn't tell him he needs a haircut. I'm just too close to see the changes, or what to do to make things better.
I'll probably only wait a week or two with this manuscript, then start editing. But this one is shorter than the last novel I had on submission by about 30,000 words, and I made myself do fewer full read-throughs while I was drafting, so I'm not as familiar with the text as I will be on the third or fourth draft. *sigh* I've got a lot of work ahead of me, so I'm going to enjoy it.
How long do you all let your first drafts simmer? Does that vary? I'd love to hear it!
4 comments:
Oh, I let my writing sit for a very long time, but it does vary.
CONGRATS on finishing this draft though! Yaaay!
As for book recs, I think my favorite book I've read this year has been SERAPHINA by Rachel Hartman, which comes out this Tuesday (7/10)! So if you're into high fantasy and dragons, I think you should check it out. :) I also really enjoyed Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott, which is a loose Cinderella retelling + revenge story set in a fairy tale Japan. Very well researched and written!
CONGRATS!!! I'm not sure if you've told me about this one...
I'm hoping I'm only a couple of weeks away from typing THE END. Fingers crossed.
The ms I'm currently revising, there was a year between draft 1 and 2. There was also about 9 months between draft 2 and serious revisions. But that can be blamed on The Silagree and my fear of this ms. Usually I leave it for about a month.
Congratulations on finishing your draft! :)
It varies. I've left projects for over half a year and others just one or two months.
Congratulations! And I'd still love to help with any critting/beta of your new work!
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