The first half of this book keep growing in revisions, while the second half keeps… not…being revised.
Cut it in half and call it a duology? š
ā E. K. Thiede (Emily) (@ethiedee) July 10, 2019
(At least the first part of the tweet; itās pretty hard to create a duology out of a story thatās already been envisioned as a trilogy!)
Itās been pretty much a full year since I started my critique group, and the time Iāve spend working with my CPs has been full of revelations about myself as a writer.
This is a fairly common trait among writers and not necessarily a bad thing. Ā No one would spend the necessary months or years to write a novel if they didnāt on some level believe themselves good at it, or at least capable of getting better.
Fourth (left) and partial sixth (right) drafts of my WIP
The end.
But of course thatās not the end at all. Ā Indeed, the realization of how wretched having your work critiqued can be is only just the beginning of a new stage of your writing journey.
Three drafts of my WIP: first (in the box), second (blue), and third (clear)
āThoughts on Reading Through My Novelās Third Draft and Completing My Fourth Draft at More or Less the Same Timeā.
Because that is how it went down.
At the intersection of these two opposing ideas is the place where I wonder whether, at this moment, Iām good enough for traditional publication.
Whether my historical fiction WIP, which Iāve believed in long enough to have now gone through three (soon to be four) drafts, is now good enough to at least pique the interest of a publishing professional, let alone snag and hold that interest for the duration.
And then there were three: first (green), second (blue), and third (clear) drafts of my WIP
Compared to the marathon of completing the second draft of my historical fiction WIPāwhich amounted to a complete rewrite of a draft written years agoāthere was no way, I told myself, that Iād spend another year on draft three.
Or even the better part of a year
And then there were two: first (left) and second (right) drafts of my WIP
The first time I did a complete read-through of my novel, I was terrified of what Iād find.
This time, I was excited as hell.
Thirty-one chapters rewritten and accounted for
In not even counting the two months where I purposely did no writing at all, it took an entire year to write the second draft of my historical fiction novel-in-progress, which amounted to a complete rewrite of my first draft.
It took longer to write than the first draft itself, which I completed in 10 months back in in 2005.
Not the “re-re” I’m referring to, but like the Bajan beauty in her famous revenge video, I had to get tough on this chapter
So the popular, and unfortunately, all too true saying goes.
After working on the first draft my historical fiction trilogy for the better part of three years (with a long, six-year hiatus in between), I was ecstatic to finally get started on draft two of book #1 back in January of this year.
A Frame Around Infinity 