I'm editing an entire draft of my novel in one month

I've been caught in the 'second draft death zone' for months now.

Many acquaintances and friends have tried to write a book, made it to the second draft, gotten stuck, and eventually quit. When I finished my first draft I proclaimed, that will NOT be me.

That was 5 months ago. I haven't made any solid progress since.

Why? Well, I know what's wrong with my book (and there's SO much wrong) but not how to fix it, and each time I look at my manuscript, I only see its flaws and I daydream about throwing it in the trash, burning down that trash can and everything in it, and pretending I never wasted any time on such awful writing.

I don't call it a 'death zone' for nothing.

So on Saturday when Nat Eliason told me that, inspired by my 50k words in 30 days project earlier this year, he was going to embark on an absolutely insane mission to write 120K words in one month (that's 480 pages double-spaced!), I asked if could I join in and do my own sprint.

Mine is only moderately ambitious in comparison: to get out of the 2nd draft death zone and edit my entire draft in one month.

THE PLAN

Draft Focus: Increasing the story's Conflict and Suspense.

• I have 31 days between now and September 19th
• I'm spending 9 of those days visiting family and best friends

So I have 22 work days to edit this draft.

There's 91,084 words in my draft.

That’s an average of editing 4,140 words per day.

After my 50k in 30 days challenge, this feels doable. I'm sure some days will suck. But if it gets me out of the death zone, I'm game.

I'll be tweeting updates every now and then if you'd like to follow along.