Wow. Hello out there. Ever tried to get back into a website you haven\’t used in 5 years? That was a walk down memory lane. Why do I have so many email addresses?
I started this blog in October 2010 with one goal in mind. Write a book. By the morning of December 1st, I\’d written more than 50,000 words. I\’d written a book. The story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I was elated. I saved the story to a thumb drive for safe keeping. I printed the book so I could hold it in my hands. My laptop died. I lost the thumb drive. All I have left are my printed pages.
I attempted to edit the novel many times over the years but grew bored of starting the editing process over and over. I never really got through editing the first few chapters before feeling frustrated with the amount of revision needed. I started a prequel during the 2015 NaNoWriMo using two of my favorite characters from the first book. I wrote about 21,000 words by the end of November. I\’ve gone back to it here and there but not with any serious intent.
Don\’t get me wrong. I love both the initial book and the second would be book. I adore my characters. I just …. I don\’t adore the editing. There I said it. I have countless books on writing, structure, outlining, plot, characters, so on ad nauseam. Not a single book on editing. I do not have a clue how to edit this work. It\’s been 10 years now since I wrote the first book. Will I even feel the same about the story? Will I still love it? Let\’s find out, yeah?
Step one is to get the first book back into digital format. As I mentioned above, the only copy I have is printed. I\’ve tried a few different ways, but typing it over again seems to be the best way to get it back to an editable format. The goal is to get it done and not to get too hung up in the editing process during this phase. There are 160 pages double spaced. I type quickly, so I\’ll set a goal of getting through 12 pages a day. This puts me at two weeks to get this done. I can do that.
Wendy Crafton Writes 