Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Massive Rewrites, You Say? Why Yes, We've Got Those.

(Reposted from 09/25/08)

As you might know, JLY and I finished writing Book 1 on 7/7/08. And then, began editing it. That means we've been editing for over two months now. Two months. Of editing.

If you've read JLY's blog at all, you know she's the perfectionist. She likes it when things are perfect. Me, on the other hand? I like it when things are done.

Which is why editing is painful for me. I wanted to power through it and finish it and submit the book so I can put a big metaphorical DONE stamp on SFA Book 1... But luckily, JLY and KM Ricker (amongst other people) have talked sense into me... So it looks like we might delay publishing until we can go over the entire book again and make it... better...

Sometimes, with editing, I get the feeling that I'm not making things better, I'm just making things different. I hate that feeling... It seems unproductive.

But, JLY and I did have a good round of editing lately, where we rolled up our sleeves and cleaned up some of the Annalise sub-plot (which gets a little messy at times)... Hopefully, what we're doing is making it better, and not just different.

After some discussion, JLY and I decided to share one of the changes-- an added scene, in this case-- for the update last week. This scene is in rough-draft (and by that, I mean it hasn't been gone through any rounds of editing yet). If you read it, I hope you liked seeing what we've been bashing our heads against for the past two months or so... The process of ripping open the story and then putting it back together. So to speak.

Oh, to answer the question in the comments, JLY and I have opted not to use a professional editor... Since we've already got the two of us, plus KM Ricker's opinion, I tend to think we've got enough opinions floating around... Also, I'm not sure that the quality of professional editing we'd get with a self-publishing company would be that worth it, since the editors don't work with you for as much time, or as closely. But maybe a professional editor would be a good idea in the future, at some point...

<3

KL

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