Making the Cuts
Before I printed out the manuscript of my current project, I had never printed a single document that was so long. I had to refill the paper tray in our printer probably six times. Granted, it's not a huge printer, but it was still something to watch the stack of pages grow.
I debated whether it was worth it to print it out. Couldn't I just do all the edits on the computer? But ultimately I decided that reading it in a different format would probably help me to see things I kept missing on the screen. And I could get a break from staring at said screen."Look at you!" my husband said when he came home and saw the stack of papers on the counter. "Your story exists outside of your computer now!" I appreciated his excitement for me.
This is my first time editing something like this. Of course I revised the papers that I wrote in school, but none of them were over thirty or forty pages. I also did a certain amount of reworking of this story when I went from "zero draft" to first draft. But that was mostly just getting the story in the right order and fixing glaring character issues. I did nothing to address the actual writing or any inconsistencies.
For some reason, I had it in my mind that it would take three or four days to read through the first draft and make notes. Maybe five if the kids cut their afternoon naps short. Then it would take another three or four days to actually make the changes to the document. I don't know where I came up with that time frame, especially considering it took me five years to have this first draft in hand. Those of you who have done this before are probably laughing at me right now. Go ahead. I'll take it. I am notorious for being overly optimistic about what I achieve in a set amount of time.
I've been at it for over a week now and I've only marked up nine chapters. To be fair, the toddler is teething and the four year old has been on spring break, so I've had a pretty full plate in the mom department. Still, this could take a while.
I have to say I'm enjoying myself, though. I thought it would be harder to cross out words or sentences or scenes that don't work. Maybe its because I'm on a roll from all the decluttering I've been doing in the house recently, but I'm taking a certain amount of joy in cutting the fat to make the writing cleaner and the narrative flow better. I even decided to cut an entire subplot that I think will make more sense later in the series.
It's encouraging to read my story and discover that while there are plenty of changes to be made, I actually think I wrote something kinda good. I'm feeling simultaneously excited and nervous about giving it to my beta readers once I'm through with this round of edits. Which at this rate could end up taking another five years.