A Very Quick Note…

I’ve now finished the first revision of my project The American Nine.

(Well, not now – it was a few days ago. Anyway…)

I consider that first revision to be a success. I believe I took care of all of the major continuity issues that I was facing due to some changes mid-rough draft, and I shaved somewhere around 1,500 words from the manuscript with very little effort to get it under 95,000 words. (To be accurate, 94,619, at last count.)

I have the feeling that I am going to take the advice I have seen writing coaches give in print and let the project sit for a while. I am thinking that will be until at least the end of this month. As I’ve written recently, revising is a big deal. Before I even think about showing this project to any agents/publishers, I want to put it through a thorough process. That would include:

• At least two major edits where I take a long look at the manuscript and consider whether anything needs to be added or removed. I believe if I think something needs to be added, however, I’ll have to wind up taking something out in return. Such is life, and such is keeping a manuscript under that wonderful 99,999-word mark.
• At least one more revision to recheck for continuity errors.
• Reviews/critiques from other writers, especially later in the process when I’ll be editing and proofreading.

What’s going to happen until then? I believe I’ll go ahead and read through some manuscripts fellow writers have given me to review, and get my comments back to them as I can. Work appears to be somewhat hectic for the next couple of weeks, with a longer break at the end. It’s getting closer and closer to the end of the school term, for sure.

A couple of questions:

• Should I start to count my blogging toward my overall word count for the week?
• Should I count revising other people’s work toward my revising count?

Go hog wild with your advice in the comments or wherever.