Pass me the machete

Just a quickie to say I've edited 15% of the book so far, and all is well. This isn't the first edit for the beginning of the book by any means - certainly the first third of the book has been through quite a few drafts already. Still, I'm struck by what amount of work it still needs! And I'm anticipating doing at least 2 further drafts (including this one) before the thing is ready to be submitted anywhere.

I've cut 2000 words which is good - it's so cathartic! I'm about to get rid of a character who doesn't do anything and save them for another book. It's enough to give you a god complex. I love it.

I really like this process so far. It was such a relief to end the story, as I was never entirely sure how it would end until I got there. Now I feel like I can tinker and cut and rewrite to my heart's content, having got a better idea of the overall shape of the story. That's what was so difficult when I was still writing the first draft: keeping the through-line and shape of the book in my head. I see now that everything (dialogue, scenes, funny bits) has to add something significant to character and/or keep moving the story forward, every scene has to contribute to the whole, rather than the book being a series of vignettes. I guess that's what they mean by killing your darlings. I feel like a mass murderer at the moment! It's great!

First Draft Done! RAH!!!!

It's finally flippin' well finished!

Lordy, it's only taken me, what?

ALL MY LIFE

Fuck me, I cannot believe it. Sorry for the language, but it has been a long time coming. And do you know what? In true style, I wrote the last sentence, went to save it and for the first time, EVER, my laptop crashed. Yes. I am not making this up. It's like it KNEW. Cue long phone conversation to husband who is Oracle of All Things I.T. I was remarkably calm, in fact I was more worried that I wasn't going to be able to post my Novel Racers coffee morning tomorrow. I'm not sure why I was so calm, I guess I was in denial.

After much clicking on stuff that wouldn't work and monitoring CPU usage and trying to shut random things down, we resorted to shutting everything down and crossing our fingers.

I fired the thing up again, and who would have guessed it? It's intact. Thank you, Bill Gates. Thank you a lot.

I'm delirious - look, it's 130,000 sodding words long and it's taken a while...I can't wait to edit, I'm serious. Did I mention it was 130,000 words long? I'm going to take a scythe to it, I'm telling you. Whole characters are going to go (probably), whole scenes, maybe even a subplot. It's going to be 110,000 absolute max and as tight as a gnat's chuff.

I over-write. I'm going to deal with it. I just don't know any other way, yet.

Anyway, I am being remarkably restrained and having a wee snifter of Gewürztraminer, because it's all we have in the fridge, but tomorrow night there will be Champagne and smiles and laughter and just the slightest bit of regret...ahh...

Hurrrrrah!!!!!