book editing: expectation vs reality

Day 20

Daily goal: 4,140 words/day.

Today: 4,856 words

303 Pages Edited so Far

Draft 2 Goal: Increase Conflict and Suspense

I thought book editing was linear. I would edit roughly 4200 words a day for 22 days and then I'd be done with conflict and suspense for my novel.

lol

Now that I'm 3/4 of the way through my sprint, I'm seeing that editing is more like a patchwork quilt. One square of 4200 words on one day turns out really well, maybe that quilt patch is a really vivid color, new and soft to the touch. The writing in there is chock-full of great conflict and suspense. But on another patch, a different set 4200 words look like old greasy brown paper that's used to wrap fast food in. One day of working on those words is nowhere near enough.

On top of that, as I go along, I find big concepts that need me to go back through the whole book and re-concept parts of it. It's like taking a seam ripper to parts of the quilt and stitching them back together in different patterns. But I don't have time on my sprint to really do that.

So I'm going to finish my 'edit a book in 31 days' challenge on time (maybe early) but... not really.

I am guessing this is totally normal.

And either way, I'm doing the damn work. I'll work till I sleep again tonight. On a Saturday. I love it. I love it so much. Just thinking about it is getting me teary eyed. I feel so incredibly thankful to be able to struggle right now and to try to write a good book. This is all I've ever wanted, and it's here, and I'm doing it!, and wow and wow and wow