After the debacle that was the first week of my 3 week "vacation" I felt a little pressed for time in amongst the holidays and visiting with family. I did what any (in)sane writer would do, once I got the tiniest fraction of time I hunkered down, turned off the outside world (including updating my blog), and revised.
My Alpha Readers have ~32,000 words/14 Chapters revised (sometimes 3 or 4 times) at their disposal for feedback and they get more almost every day. It's my hope that they're still captivated by the story and ecstatic about being part of my "process". So far the feedback I've been getting has really helped tighten some things and clean stuff up.
I do have one concern as I'm revising, I'm aiming for 90,000-95,000 words in the polished draft, but my word count, despite cutting aggressively, is going up as I flesh out some of the chapters that were mere skeletons before. It's sitting at ~101,000 as of this blog post.
So I've formed a plan! A devious, dangerous, and cunning (read mundane and boring) plan!
- Finish this revision process, cutting and adding as "needed".
- Get it to myself in a "new format" either print it out, throw it on a tablet. Really anything so I can take it to a different "space" and mark it up. My Alpha Readers will get it in various formats as well (electronic, if you want dead trees, be responsible for them yourself)
- Merge in changes/cuts/fixes.
- Find a Critique Partner or group of said individuals.
Number 4 is where it gets a little dicey, as that will involve not only having my work critiqued by someone who's actually interested in doing so (scary), but also critiquing their work (terrifying). CPSeek.com should help with the whole "finding people" part, it's the rest that bothers me.
What if I have several critique partners who don't like my work? What if I don't like theres?
I'm not good with confrontation.
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