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Writing Journey: Journal Entry 16

April 21, 2021

Day 198, Week 28

  • Words: 77,125
  • Revised Words v2: 18,432
  • Campaign funded: 33%
  • Ego Size: Orange
  • Emotional State: I’m a Writer!

Revisions have begun. The current schedule is 10,000 words a week (approx.). Right now, that’s about 5 chapters a week to revise, refine, make pretty, add depth, find more secondary character attributes, and clean up.

The thing is…I’ve already done the larger refining process. I spent about 3 weeks killing my darlings, stripping out unnecessary language, scenes, chapters, and poor wording. So now, what’s being pointed out is word choice, questions on understanding of plot points, and getting rid of all of that passive, weak language.

Fun Fact: Did you know you could stare at a sentence and rework it for an hour? Yeah, I didn’t either, but here we are.

I talked to my editor last Wednesday night. We set up the word count goals. I sat down on Thursday morning and it was the LAST thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to touch my manuscript. Not because I thought it was complete – it’s not. Not because I thought my words were golden nuggets of perfection only the angels can improve – they’re not.

I just didn’t want to. It was this feeling in my gut. This wall of nope, nyet, nein, non. I couldn’t face it. I’ve spent the past 7 months pouring my whole creative energy into this book and I just…didn’t want to touch it.

But I am a Gen Xer and we get shit done. So, I pulled on my big girl boots on Saturday (and Sunday) and got it done. And it was alright. I’m getting it done and feeling good about what I’ve revised so far. I actually added some words…whoops. But you can’t add depth and additional details without increasing in word count somewhere. Maybe in Revision Round 3 I’ll remove some of them. Or not.

I’m reading again!

I’ve somehow, somewhere, found time to read again. I’m filling out my Fantasy Bingo card at a rate I didn’t expect. In May, I’ll be posting book reviews here, so watch out for those. I’ve realized I’m a bit harsh on the books I read. I want them to be as good as they can be. I’m a development editor. Structure, story, and narrative are my focus. If you fail at any of those, I’m going to call you out on it. I can’t help it.

My husband said it’s going to come back around and bite me when people review my book. It might. If it does, I’m alright with that because I’ll learn from it and do better. And to be honest, even with the flaws I point out, so far none of the books are rated below a 3.5, so I’m not that harsh.

I’m writing… everywhere!

I’ve also begun posting on Medium. Check it out here. We’ll see where it goes. I’d love to make some money, but if I don’t, I’m alright with that.

The worst part is figuring out what goes where – what I post here, what I post there, what I post in my Author Community. Because while some overlap is fine, you can’t post the same thing everywhere. Basically, my author community is getting all the behind the scenes stuff for my book, Medium is getting writing tips, and this blog is getting book reviews, this weekly journal…and whatever else I can come up with. I may be stretching myself too thin.

And the campaign…goes on

In other news, the campaigning continues. Social media posts are pouring out and I’m doing my best to make an appearance on all of them. I have to say, this part isn’t so fun. I like the interactions with people and I loved catching up with a few of them, but it’s exhausting. I feel like I’m on a press junket, without any press, twirling a baton, while juggling fire, with a neon sign over my head screaming out, LOOK AT ME. BUY MY BOOK.

But I’ve realized something. Something really really important.

On Sunday, Paul & I did a livestream event on Instagram. Only our good friend showed up, which some people would see was a failure. I didn’t. I had fun. I hope Paul had fun. We chatted about my book and at the end, I answered the question of, “What did I learn from all this?” I rambled on in answering it – I’ve truly learned a lot – but at the end, I said:

I am a writer.

And I teared up. I’m tearing up typing this. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I never wrote. Because of fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of failing. Fear of writing and no one reading it.

And now none of that matters. I love writing. I don’t care if I’m shouting into the void. I don’t care if only those people who funded my campaign read my book. Because I am a writer and I’m just going to keep on writing. No matter what.

To read more of my weekly whine fests and writing journal journey posts, click here.