March 24, 2021
Day 170, Week 24
- Words: 80,506 (15,583 revised out)
- Revised Chapters: 29.5
- Ego Size: Raisin
- Emotional State: I’m doing it wrong!
I’ve been steadily revising my novel and have chopped quite a lot of words out of it. Not enough, but a decent bit. And yet….I wonder if I’m doing it wrong. Maybe I’m cutting the wrong way. Maybe I shouldn’t be rewriting every scene. Maybe my quest for less words is doing damage to my story.
I don’t know. I know the changes I made were to address some of the holes and motivating issues my character had in specific scenes. I took out some of the good stuff. I removed a lot of dialogue and back and forth. But was it relevant and necessary good stuff? Did it add anything? I have no idea.
I’m kinda stuck. I’m going to finish the last 4 chapters and then start over again with my new editor. And I have it all saved in either a previous version or a dump file, so it’s not truly gone…just sort of gone. I wish I had more time away from it, to be honest, but that’s not how this program works.
In other news, my pre-sale campaign goes live next Friday. Now, this isn’t your ordinary pre-sale campaign since it’s designed to pay for the publishing costs of the book. If I don’t hit my goal, I don’t publish with my publisher. It’s not the end of the world, I have a plan B in place, but still…
And it’s bringing up some demons. Some buried deep and only showing themselves in rare moments where I am angry for no real reason demons. My poor husband. At least we’re at a point in our relationship where I can say, “You did nothing wrong. I’m just angry and I don’t know why,” and he completely understands and nothing is escalated.
But still. I thought I killed these demons or at least made them small enough to be an irritant and not a dark flash of anger that erupts in the middle of a movie. Okay, it was a 4 hour movie and I was tired, so there was a little bit of an ignition, but not enough for the intensity of the response.
I haven’t though. They’re still there, the I’m not worthy, people don’t love me, no one will buy my book demons that eat away at you until you’re nothing but a pile of fear and darkness. I’m in control and I’ve beaten them back, but I expect more of these moments to occur as my campaign runs and as the ticker moves or doesn’t move.
The next month will be fraught. And yet, I’ve got an idea for the second book in the series and have been running scenes in my head. The plan is coming together, except for the mystery part – still working it out – but the first chapter is written and Chs 2 & 3 are bulleted out and ready to go. So that’s something good.
And spring is here. So that’s something good. And the garden needs doing. So that’s something bad. But my husband, who hates gardening more than I do, has begun already on our goal to have a decent lawn this year. So that’s something good.
I guess I need to cling to those good moments right now, to ride out the coming storm.
Why did I do this again?