Todays rambling post is brought to you by little sleep, shiny objects, and the realization of how important having your book bible organized is......
The time has come to put it to the side for a while so that when I do come back to it I have a clean head to make objective decisions on what it needs to make it better. Along with that I've accepted that that uneasy feeling is the fact that I've cut the original book into two. While I changed the POV the realization that I tried to fit too much into one book hit me. Already having decided that this book will be apart of the series cutting it into two wasn't a hard decision. Yet, subconsciously I don't think I've accepted the drastic change.
Back to what I was wanting to talk about organization. Going back to look over Mackenzie Falls, my contemporary romance that I hit a wall with in editing I saw several things in the file that was a slap in the face. 1. It's too long. I'm talking about right now it's sitting at 94K. Which is way too long. 2. The footwork, aka book bible, and all that goes with it is unorganized so that when I look at the cork-board I just see chapter numbers. 3. I have to get it together before I even think about sending it anyone to read, let alone to the editor I was planning on talking to today to see if we would be a fit to work with to get this self published.
Well shit on a stick. Here I thought I was a lot farther than I really am. Yes, I have a 'completed manuscript', but it's a draft that isn't clean enough to go out. Why I've sent it out to agents I have no clue. Lesson learned as to why I've only gotten rejections.
Now that I see where I've gone wrong it's time to get organized. It's amazing just how much work goes into organizing a book. Sorry to burst your bubble people that writing a novel in reality has a whole lot more to it than the actual writing part.
This weekend will be dedicated to backtracking on the organization front. What should have done before a word is even written, let alone being down while writing shall now be done. Hopefully this will breakdown the editing wall that I've hit with this story.
As much as I want to spend my time creating new words, this is so important that I'm not allowed to ignore it. Don't get me wrong on the breaks that I will need to take I'm going to finish the erotica short story that I started last month.
Cause here's a big thing that just smacked me upside the head. You can have all the projects in the world done in first draft or second draft form. But if you don't have anything clean enough to put out there all you have are a bunch of shitty first drafts that no one other than yourself is going to see. Personally I'd like people to read my work. That being said it's time to get organized.
Outlines will be cleaned up, character descriptions will be typed up, summaries will be written, scene and chapter breakdowns will be created, and setting descriptions will be drawn up. All these are in my head already, but it's a totally different thing when you put it all in one place that you know you can reference to when your memory isn't quite what it should be.
So go be organized in your writing. This lesson is brought to you by someone who is kicking themselves for not doing. It's one of the many newbie lessons that I shall never have to repeat cause, well, it's a pain in the butt to go back to redo work that should have been done in the first place. Which I will be implementing in all future work.
Excuse me I got a few days worth of work that needs to be done before I'm going to even allow myself to start editing these two novels. Both of which I can't wait for you to read one day....soon I hope.
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