Finished the description and characterization in chapter 18. On to chapter 19 and 17.

I'm calling it 45 minutes of writing, even though it took an hour, because I got up to get an orange and tea and because there's now an intricate multicolored doodle in the corner of page 8. I'm now nearly one day ahead of schedule for the week. 4:15 left.


Are you close to finishing this current revision so you'll leave it alone for a while before going back into it? Or is there one more read through to go?

The former, thankfully. It's a multi-step writing process:

1. First draft, which was handwritten

2.a. Type in the first draft, making mostly minor changes - putting the parts where I was writing really quickly into actual English, for example.

2.b. Add lots of new scenes and expand the old scenes. I had to add a lot of plot. That is, I'd be writing chapter 11 and realize that X had to happen in chapter 5, so I put a note on the outline to add a scene where X happened when I revised chapter 5. Often that meant adding mentions of X to scenes in chapters 6 through 10. Or, I might realize I had mentioned a character in chapter 6, needed him again in chapter 17, and had forgotten he existed in the intervening chapters. This is why the first draft was about 60k words, and the second is nearly 100k.

3. Print out and make more changes, again mostly to plot. then type them in. This is where I am supposed to notice inconsistencies like having the same conversation in chapters 16 and 17, or that the characters already know Y and I had forgotten.

4. Description and Characterization. Because I never remember to put it in earlier, because I worry more about the plot. And it's completely obvious to me what the characters are thinking and feeling, because that's where the plot comes from. So I go through the chapter, either on screen or printed out, and add stuff.

5. Polish. This is where I have my MSWord macro highlight the dozen or so words I use too much, and I go through and change as many of them as possible. Also I spellcheck, especially the character names. I also read the whole chapter, sometimes out loud, and try to make it sound like it was written by a writer, not a five-year-old with a crayon.

Right now, I am doing steps 4 and 5. Chapters 17 and 18 just need to be polished, and chapters 19 and 20 need to go through step 4 and then step 5.

Then, I will rewrite one scene in chapter 13 (because I screwed up), and rewrite chapter 1. Then I will declare the second draft to be done, and let it sit for some time (don't know how long yet) before I go on to draft 3.

Draft 3 will involve reading the whole thing through like a real book, then revising it backwards. Right now the end is much much better written than the beginning. I've learned a lot in two years. The first half has almost no description in it. I also want to make sure my maps are consistent.

If nothing else, it sounds like it's getting more and more polished, but at what point do you decide that you're done? I have a hard enough time proclaiming that the code I write is finished and I'm usually forced to conceed because of a dealine or a commitment... But with just writing for yourself, it's in perpetual "improvement mode" isn't it?

After draft 3, I will be asking people to read it again. Then depending on what they say, I will either revise it some more, send it to publishers and agents, or burn it.

There are probably always going to be things I can do to make it better, but I'm getting kind of sick of it and there are more things I want to write. I don't think I'll have any problem saying it's finally done.

Oh, and next time, I am doing more of the revision while I am actually writing the book, instead of leaving it all for the end. It's hard work and the first draft is more fun, so I want to spread it out a little.