Revisions

There's always a certain point in whatever manuscript I'm revising where I think, "This is terrible. No one in their right mind would ever read it." And I think I've hit it in After the Storm.

I try to make sure there's enough of a time gap between finishing one draft and revising the next. I find it helps to let my brain forget about it for a while - a chance to make sure that I look it over with fresh eyes. It usually works, as I find plot holes or typos or logic errors that I hadn't seen previously. Some of them are so blatant that I wonder how I missed them in the first place. But I also like the time lapse because, usually, by the time I've finished a draft, I'm so sick of the book in the first place that the last thing I want to do is spend more time with these characters.

So into a drawer it goes for a month or so. Trust me, there is always something else for me to work on in the interim. Always.

Well, now that I'm mostly settled into my new house (I ordered a baker's rack for the kitchen last night and can't wait to get it, I have dining room furniture coming in about a week, and that just leaves the living room sofas to order and the family room ones to recover - woo hoo!), I figured it was time to drag out After the Storm. It's been at least a month since I last looked at it (obviously, or else I'd never have tossed that bloody 5th draft - if a hard copy existed.) Fresh eyes. New surroundings. Can't wait to reread it.

I'm about a third of the way into it and there's little that's needed to be changed so far - which is good. However, since it's the fifth draft and there's little to be changed, it's mostly looking for typos and plot holes. I've patched up one so far, crossed out a bunch of unnecessary words, and that's it. So far, it's pretty tedious. Who wants to read to look for mistakes?

Well, it should get better - I know there were some sections that I'd completely rewritten with the last revision, so hopefully it'll be more interesting than looking for typos. I hope so.

On the plus side, though - the flip side of revision hell is that it's almost ready for submission. =)