kristaphillips 
As I’ve already noted, ACFW was, wow.
Those 3 days were filled will OODLES of information, too much really for me to process. But the good news is, I’ve come home energized and ready to “take on the world” with my writing.
Well, maybe not all that jazz, but I am pumped. Our MTCW group is having a “marathon” weekend, as well as a month long marathon in October. It is a time to really kick into gear, give ourselves big goals to hurdle, and cheer each other on as we do it. It’s great to have the accountability.
My goal is to make it through my entire manuscript in my 3rd edit, applying the principles I’ve learned. I also want to tweak my proposal and get it sent out to some contacts made through ACFW. It will be difficult, as my “day” job (aka the one that pays the bills…) is getting a bit overwhelming so my time will be cut more than I’d planned.
Along with getting through my 3rd edit, my plan is to cut my word count to 90K. It was at 100K when I went to conference, but I know I can cut quite a bit by just trimming my “excess” words. I also have a few scenes I know I’ll be diminishing from a scene to a paragraph, but then a few scenes that I didn’t include that are needed. My 90K goal should be easily attained, but it will be a pretty big accomplishment to do it in a month!
I also am realizing that this time last year, I was writing my book! I started in August and completed in early November. I then took three months “off” for writing, and started back up in March editing. I took another month off to start book two, but in preparation for ACFW put it aside and concentrated on editing LOL.
It’s almost there!! I know I am not perfect, and my baby will never FEEL perfect, but once I’m done with this edit, I feel like it is time to put it aside and focus on getting into the right hands and working on book two.
Unfortunately that puts me in the throws of year end at work, but God knows the timing and I’ll get through it.
Please pray for me this month as a I marathon! I think I’ll add my own version of a word count tracker to the side of my blog to track my progress! This will keep count of my CUT words though! (and how many remaining words I got through on my edit)
Anyone have some great tips for staying on track with your writing?
Editing is good and bad, isn’t it? I love it after I’ve done the very rough first draft. My first drafts are filled with typos, grammar mistakes, etc…but it’s just my rough sketch. Then, that first edit is putting on the flesh. That part is fun.
What gets hard is the following edits. What to cut, what to fine tune, etc. And it’s always after I do a course online or go to a conference or get some edits back from crit group that leads me to going through the manuscript again with the newfound knowledge.
Is it EVER done? Nope…not until someone way more important than me (namely a publishing company’s editor) says it is.
So, press on, you’re in my prayers.
Thanks!! You are so right, it’s never done and it’s NEVER perfect. At least in my eyes. I’m not a ‘good enough’ kinda gal but I’m learning that eventually I’ll have to let go of my baby and let her fly, little spots and all!