What revision looks like: A very long story
I cannot believe the last time I updated was more than a month ago! Yeesh. I've got a lot of excuses. Travel. Book promo. Adding an in-law apartment to our house. Moving in-laws into our house. Unpacking in-laws' things. Teaching. Travel travel travel. And mostly.... REVISING. And because today I handed in this revision, I thought I'd share a little about how the book came to be, since I've heard from a lot of people about how LONG it's taking them to finish their own drafts and I wanted to offer some hope.
So...
A little story about my next book, READ BETWEEN THE LINES. :-)
I got the story spark for this book 10 years ago this month. That's right. I said 10.
I played with ideas. I wrote chapter headings. I had fun writing bits of it here and there. But that's about it.
It was a project I feared.
It was a project I loved.
Many of you know, one of the things I find most rewarding about writing is exploring things from different points of view.
In this book, I do it with 10. That's right. I said 10. (I sense a theme!)
I felt strongly that 10 was the right number, but I also wanted the story to take place in one day. And I wanted the stories to overlap. And I wanted all the characters to overlap in interesting and unexpected ways.
Well, that seemed great but also hard. Really hard. I wasn't ready and didn't know how to do it. So, I just tucked the idea away, and sometimes took notes about it in a file. I played with a few stories, but didn't take it seriously.
Then a year or two later, I was on a retreat with several other authors. We were sitting around a table and someone asked, "What is your dream project? The one you would love to work on without worrying about audience or whether you'd sell it, but just something you'd love to do?"
And my answer was this project. Everyone at the table encouraged me to tell my agent about it. They loved the concept and thought it was worth pursuing.
I shared some parts of it with my friend, the brilliant writer Robin Wasserman.
She also encouraged me to tell my agent about it.
So, I told my agent about it.
He said, "Sure. Write it."
This is what he always says. He already wants me to write what I want to write. So it was kind of silly for me to ask. But I guess I just needed to hear those words: "Sure. Write it."
Over the next few years, I wrote more between projects. It was like my "I need a break" project that I would tinker with. It was fun.
But every time I saw Robin, she would say, "How's that special project going?" And I'd kind of hem and haw, until she'd convince me to share more with her. And in this way, I slowly wrote the book.
It took a lot of years.
But with Robin's encouragement, I finally finished and shared a draft with my editor. To my shock, she said she wanted to publish it!
And then she gave me lots of comments. Lots. Of comments.
And because this project is so complicated, and I had so many comments both from my editor, and Robin (who read it AGAIN) and my writing partners Cindy and Debbi, I bought my first book journal:
In it, I started to make a map of the chapters and characters, and how they would overlap:
That seemed kind of unhelpful. So then I began to create a Bible of sorts. First with a list of characters and which chapters they appeared in (the stars are the main characters who had their own chapters):
Then I needed to study each chapter. I had to know what time it was when the chapter started. What grade the character was in. Which characters show up in the chapter. And of course, what needed to be "Fixed" (according to my readers and my editor):
You might also be able to see the letters W.O.W. This was a tip I learned from Cindy Lord. I needed to identify what the character Wanted; what the Obstacle was getting in his or her way; and what the Way was to finally get it.
This was a new character I created (my editor suggested I kill off two and add two new ones-gasp!), and therefore didn't have notes from my editor or readers. Ah, a clean(ish) page:
I handed in the revision to my editor. Then, she called me and I tried to take notes:
These were not exactly detailed. I have trouble writing quickly by hand and I couldn't keep up. But luckily, she sent me written notes after our call.
Notes in hand, it was time to start the process all over again. I followed the same method, using one page for each character instead of two (that felt like progress!):
I filled this in as I revised, knowing I'd have to go back AGAIN once I'd incorporated the new changes. Here's what a typical page looked like as I did so, and even the backs of pages:
And even on the LAST two pages I was still making tons of changes:
These are pages from my editor's letter. I crossed off each issue as I addressed it, which was VERY satisfying:
And then I was finally able to go back and key in all the changes from my mark-up, and make one final outline of the characters, which fit on ONE page. Yay:
About twenty minutes ago, I got to send the revision to Robin. Wonderful Robin. If it weren't for her, I am pretty sure I never would have finished it.
THANK YOU ROBIN, and Joan, and my writing partners Cindy and Debbi, who kept me sane while I tried to balance this crazy project with everything else going on in my life this past year.
Also, thanks to my friends on Twitter and Facebook, who joined my many "Revision Day Celebrations" which I used as a trick to help me remember to have FUN with this project, daunting as it was.
I love you all.
I hope this helped those of you feeling overwhelmed and impatient with your own progress. You can do it. If I can, YOU can!! Find the tools that help you get control of the situation. Don't lose hope. Keep clicking away. You will get there. And I will celebrate with you when you do.
:-)
So...
A little story about my next book, READ BETWEEN THE LINES. :-)
I got the story spark for this book 10 years ago this month. That's right. I said 10.
I played with ideas. I wrote chapter headings. I had fun writing bits of it here and there. But that's about it.
It was a project I feared.
It was a project I loved.
Many of you know, one of the things I find most rewarding about writing is exploring things from different points of view.
In this book, I do it with 10. That's right. I said 10. (I sense a theme!)
I felt strongly that 10 was the right number, but I also wanted the story to take place in one day. And I wanted the stories to overlap. And I wanted all the characters to overlap in interesting and unexpected ways.
Well, that seemed great but also hard. Really hard. I wasn't ready and didn't know how to do it. So, I just tucked the idea away, and sometimes took notes about it in a file. I played with a few stories, but didn't take it seriously.
Then a year or two later, I was on a retreat with several other authors. We were sitting around a table and someone asked, "What is your dream project? The one you would love to work on without worrying about audience or whether you'd sell it, but just something you'd love to do?"
And my answer was this project. Everyone at the table encouraged me to tell my agent about it. They loved the concept and thought it was worth pursuing.
I shared some parts of it with my friend, the brilliant writer Robin Wasserman.
She also encouraged me to tell my agent about it.
So, I told my agent about it.
He said, "Sure. Write it."
This is what he always says. He already wants me to write what I want to write. So it was kind of silly for me to ask. But I guess I just needed to hear those words: "Sure. Write it."
Over the next few years, I wrote more between projects. It was like my "I need a break" project that I would tinker with. It was fun.
But every time I saw Robin, she would say, "How's that special project going?" And I'd kind of hem and haw, until she'd convince me to share more with her. And in this way, I slowly wrote the book.
It took a lot of years.
But with Robin's encouragement, I finally finished and shared a draft with my editor. To my shock, she said she wanted to publish it!
And then she gave me lots of comments. Lots. Of comments.
And because this project is so complicated, and I had so many comments both from my editor, and Robin (who read it AGAIN) and my writing partners Cindy and Debbi, I bought my first book journal:
In it, I started to make a map of the chapters and characters, and how they would overlap:
That seemed kind of unhelpful. So then I began to create a Bible of sorts. First with a list of characters and which chapters they appeared in (the stars are the main characters who had their own chapters):
Then I needed to study each chapter. I had to know what time it was when the chapter started. What grade the character was in. Which characters show up in the chapter. And of course, what needed to be "Fixed" (according to my readers and my editor):
You might also be able to see the letters W.O.W. This was a tip I learned from Cindy Lord. I needed to identify what the character Wanted; what the Obstacle was getting in his or her way; and what the Way was to finally get it.
This was a new character I created (my editor suggested I kill off two and add two new ones-gasp!), and therefore didn't have notes from my editor or readers. Ah, a clean(ish) page:
I handed in the revision to my editor. Then, she called me and I tried to take notes:
These were not exactly detailed. I have trouble writing quickly by hand and I couldn't keep up. But luckily, she sent me written notes after our call.
Notes in hand, it was time to start the process all over again. I followed the same method, using one page for each character instead of two (that felt like progress!):
I filled this in as I revised, knowing I'd have to go back AGAIN once I'd incorporated the new changes. Here's what a typical page looked like as I did so, and even the backs of pages:
And even on the LAST two pages I was still making tons of changes:
These are pages from my editor's letter. I crossed off each issue as I addressed it, which was VERY satisfying:
And then I was finally able to go back and key in all the changes from my mark-up, and make one final outline of the characters, which fit on ONE page. Yay:
About twenty minutes ago, I got to send the revision to Robin. Wonderful Robin. If it weren't for her, I am pretty sure I never would have finished it.
THANK YOU ROBIN, and Joan, and my writing partners Cindy and Debbi, who kept me sane while I tried to balance this crazy project with everything else going on in my life this past year.
Also, thanks to my friends on Twitter and Facebook, who joined my many "Revision Day Celebrations" which I used as a trick to help me remember to have FUN with this project, daunting as it was.
I love you all.
I hope this helped those of you feeling overwhelmed and impatient with your own progress. You can do it. If I can, YOU can!! Find the tools that help you get control of the situation. Don't lose hope. Keep clicking away. You will get there. And I will celebrate with you when you do.
:-)