Happy St Patrick’s Day! To celebrate, here’s a shot I took while on a walk yesterday, of a tree that has decided, equinox or no equinox, it is Spring, dammit:
Also worth celebrating: I’m almost done with the first round of novel edits ✍️🎉
Only two chapters left to go! I’m aiming to get those wrapped up this weekend. Then plan out the next batch of changes. The book’s grown to 86,000 words now; I’m thinking it might top out at 90k when all these edits are done.
So what’s left to do? In no particular order:
- Add three more scenes, one that I completely forgot to write (but wrote like I’d already written it) and two that came up in feedback as needed to explain an antagonist’s actions
- Completely revise the MacGuffin subplot to make it more believable and explained in greater detail
- Rip out one of the twists, because there’s only so much far-flung tech you can shove in an otherwise “grounded” story before it breaks
- Deepen the characterization for another one of the antagonists
- Patch a couple plot holes
- Fill out character physical descriptions, add more details to their thought processes, etc
…ok, seeing it all typed out like that is a little intimidating 😅 Thank goodness I’m not working to any external deadline!
Still, I intend to get through these edits by the summer, and be down to final line edits and getting feedback from beta readers. With a bit of luck 🍀, I’ll be ready to submit it to agents (well, to query agents about it) by the end of the year.
How about you? As we head into Spring, how are your own writing goals coming along?
