The Rewrite has Landed

It's quite remarkable what happens when you set out to revise a novel you first wrote years before. At least, it was remarkable to me. I wound up rewriting an absolute ton of the thing. About two years ago, I revised the Children of Midian, but I don't think my heart was really in it. I'd spent far too much time with the characters, having moved onto a second novel of a "planned" trilogy.

The first "final" draft had several problems. First, it was bloated. I can't say it any simpler than that. No matter what I did to the book, it only got longer. I seemed unable to murder my darlings.

I also discovered that the book wasn't quite as YA as I thought. A few agents provided me some excellent feedback on that very point. And so I learned the real difference between Young Adult and Middle Grade. I also found that neither Middle Grade nor YA are tidy little categories. Midian presented some darker themes than one might expect in a MG boy novel. Given the character ages, issues they faced, and some of the "dark matter", this was an upper middle grade novel. Go ahead. Try explaining that in a query letter.

The dawning realization that Midian was MG also led me back to my original problem. The book was already too long for a YA novel from an unpublished author. How was this going to work as Middle Grade fiction?

Novice that I was, I decided to split the first novel into two middle-grade-sized books. Big mistake. I had written one story, not two. Choosing a dividing point was like throwing a dart at a double-pane window. Don't get me wrong. I knew I needed to add a little something to make it "work". I wrote a new chapter to help augment the first half and to let it stand on its own. The end result? Two smaller halves, neither of which really stood on their own.

I wound up stitching it back together before leaving the book for dead a couple of years ago. Yet, the real problems remained. The plot was too confusing. The kids were melodramatic. Elliot--the protagonist--was sort of likable, but he was just kind of... meh. Above all, there was simply too much gunk--too much stuff I had been too stubborn to remove because I thought it was so neat and indispensable.

I picked it up a couple months ago and reread it. Though fairly horrified by large swaths of the what I'd written, I spotted what drew me to write the book in the first place. So, I decided to give revising it another shot.

I once asked my daughter, "What do you do when life hands you lemons?" She was probably eight at the time, but her answer lingers with me. "Suck on 'em." There would be much lemon-sucking, which completely explains the faces I pulled as I went through the process of rewriting the book.

The Peanuts cartoon atop this post is about where my head was at.  Here are random thoughts that swam in my brain during the process.

1. Get to the point already.

2. He's a total wuss. Can't have that. (about the protag)

3. Cute, but who cares? 

4. Kill it.

5. Did you forget you cut that scene? (upon finding references to aforementioned cut scene)

6. OMG - he/she is turning again. (characters kept turning to SEE things)

7. Great. That's the author, not the story and characters.

8. Hungry.

9. You suck. Whose idea was this?

10. Hey, look, the word-count is way down.

I'm on track for the planned release date on Smashwords to start - 1/21/2012

The End of the World (Building)

Last night, I finished my world building expedition in the realm of Urban Mythos. Initially, my mission was simply to get the reader grounded in the mythological world much earlier on--move the bits of world building toward the beginning of the book.

HAH!

I shall repeat. HAH!

Much like the star ship Enterprise, I set my course, but like Captain Kirk, I found a need to beam down to several planets littered with green-skinned babes, tribbles, Apollo, and a few sentient rock creatures. In other words, I had more stuff to do than I originally thought.

First, I needed to delve deeper into the society in which Zydeco Cashcan and the other Mythos live. How do they get along in our world? Why is it no humans have noticed they're a bit ... off? Is there some kind of social pecking order for these former mythological creatures?

Second, I wanted to give the reader better insight into Parable, the mythological world from which our characters arrived years before. This was a bit tricky, because the novel doesn't take place in Parable. It called for a liberal sprinkling of information throughout the book, without appearing to be an information dump.

Third, how and why did our friendly, neighborhood Mythos find themselves exiled on earth? In the context of developing Parable as a society, I had to ensure it all made sense. The absolute best part of doing this was it gave me an opportunity to introduce the council of Parable as a malevolent "presence", not just in the past, but in this book and hopefully going forward. *winks* Also, this really helped me with the bad guy's motivations. Phineas Malice has a much more plausible reason for doing what he's doing, and boy he needed it.

Fourth, and probably closest to the original aim, I needed to do a lot of this much earlier on in the novel.

While revising, I watched the word count creep, then shoot up. Fortunately, I was able to cut some of the less important, and frankly more confusing storylines. In the end, the total word count increased by only about 5000 words. It's at 80k now, which is on the high end for a YA fantasy, but still within the realm of reason. I'm off to resubmit the first 50 pages to an agent who offered to take a second gander after I revised. Fingers crossed!

Pantser Problems

I'm more of a pantser than a plotter (thanks, Authoress), meaning I write as I go -- no multi-page outlines setting forth the entire novel where I just have to connect the dots. Outlines are like those friends with whom I love to hang out, but if they don't shoot me an eMail asking me to have lunch, it'll be three years before I see them again.

For each story concept, the big picture is up in my noggin, floating between my ears. If you were to look at my outline at any given time, you'd find perhaps the next three to six chapters laid out, each with only four or five bullet points describing what I expect to happen. Because I'm a pantser, not all those points will wind up in their designated chapters. My imagination, my muse, my whatever-you-call-it takes the book where it needs to go -- the journey. While pantsing my way through a novel (I now have a vision of a dog dragging itself across the carpet by its butt for some reason), the two things I keep in mind journey-wise include developing my characters the way I want, and getting those crucial plot points to occur, even if they don't happen when I'd planned.

I've often wondered what suffers because of my seat-of-the-pants writing style. The most obvious weakness for me has always been weak setting in the first draft. The focus is still all about characters doing and saying stuff so that the following occurs (in no particular order):

a) the plot moves
b) we know who they are
c) we know what they want
d) we know why they can't always obtain their hearts' desires.

Do I care if you can see and touch the scenery? Do I care if you know what the location smells like? Do I care if you know what color jacket somebody's wearing? I'll be honest. Not right away. I should, of course, but in the first draft I am so busy trying to get the nuts and bolts of the story into words before they fly out of my brain forever. I'm better than I used to be, mind you. As I've become more experienced and developed my writing muscles, setting comes more naturally and winds up in the first draft.

So what else suffers? If the plot is sufficiently complex, character development may suffer. I may be so busy trying to make the plot hang together, I forgot that the overall story arc requires a certain number of deeply developed characters. If you don't know the cast very well or care a whole lot about them, that they're in danger or that they overcome obstacles just won't resonate with you.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I might spend so much time with my characters that the plot does not, in fact, hang together. I can't just have the characters evolve throughout the book for no coherent reason. People don't change without some impetus. Events must occur to kick inertia in the pants. And those events - those crucial plot points - have to make sense. Conversely, events can occur because of the character as opposed to the character changing because of those events. In the end, it all needs to fit.

As a fantasy writer, world building is important. I do not pen richly detailed high fantasy, so I've no need to invent languages and complex societies. However, even in contemporary fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism -- all the genres that take place in the familiar world, there's a degree of world building required to get the reader grounded in the time and place, and above all, the RULES. I'm going to follow up with another post on "retroactive world building", but another weakness of being a pantser is that the elements of world building suffer. World building requires a high degree of planning and attention to detail. Depending on when the story takes place, you may need to introduce the world as the story unfolds, through back story or a combination of both.

More to come.

The World Building Off Ramp

While I was busy cultivating the ideas behind my next novel - Ghost Fishing - I received feedback on a partial and full manuscript of Urban Mythos. Additionally, during the awesome WDC YA Forum's Review Frenzy last week, I received additional critiques from three fellow writers. What came out of all this commentary is that I need to really get the reader more tuned in to the world in which Zydeco lives as well as the world from where he traveled. And I need to do it sooner in the novel.

In short, I need to slam on the brakes, and take the world building off ramp.

I owe a huge debt of thanks most especially to two amazing women on the other/under side of the globe -- Louisa and Kate -- who gave me unbelievably detailed feedback. Thanks, ladies. Australia Rocks!

Based on the collective feedback of agents and writers alike, I've settled on the following plan of attack:

• Elaborate more on Parable, the land from which Zydeco and his Mythos mates came. I'm not going to go too deep or too far here, but I'll provide more detail early on about the place and why certain creatures were banished.
• Show how it is that these recovering mythological creatures, a.k.a. Mythos, in my fictional city just get by without we regular humans realizing they are there. I'll illustrate more of the social ecosystem in which they live on earth.
• Although Zydeco has been a human teenager for a couple of years, he needs to occasionally act and think like a Griffin might. Kate and Louisa gave me some brilliant ideas here. 
• Clean up Phineas Malice's motives. This may be the easiest bit.

I've got some notes on other changes I might make, but the above items are the biggies. That said, I've got a bit more to do on Ghost Fishing before I jump back to my Mythos children. I'm trying to wrap up the opening that sets the plot in motion, but should wrap that up quickly.

I'll be hopping off the middle grade highway and pulling on to the YA service road any day now.

It's Tuesday and I've been interviewed

There isn't much going on today beyond hellacious times at work. Is that how you spell hellacious? Hmm. Anyway, WriteOnCon kicked off and I'm busy playing catch up on all the posts and chats of the day. The content is phenomenal. So far, I've read a number of fascinating items, but I especially loved this post on revisions from Kendra Levin of Viking. I'm also in the midst of catching up on the transcript of a live chat with Suzie Townsend from FinePrint Literary.

The other bit of news today is that the awesome Dorothy Dreyer interviewed me for We Do Write, a blog that interviews aspiring authors on their journey to publication. She did a fantastic job asking me questions that make me look good (or at least better than I usually do!) You can check it out here. There's even a picture of me with my eyes open. Gadzooks! Odds Bodkins! That'll do for the archaic expressions for today. Back to WriteOnCon!

Primary revisions complete

I meant to post this a while back, but things have been a bit hectic around here, what with spending every night working on a synopsis and query letter for Urban Mythos. Now that's out of the way, I can finally focus a bit more on sharing overall progress. As the title says, the primary revisions of the book are done. I've been following my revision process for the most part. And like any "process", it changes over time. That's a good thing. You can't just invent something and expect perfection off the bat.

You can't set off to create any sort of framework, be it writing, revisiing, software development (my day job). If you do, you'll fail every time.  These kinds of things have to develop over time. They come about organically through experience.

Great. So now that I've rationalized not following my revision process verbatim, let's check the progress.

Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

• Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
• Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
• Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
• Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball. 

It took a few weeks to get through this round and when I finished, I realized that after the decrap-ification of round #1, this was probably the most important bit of revising I'll do. If decrap-ification ensures that the book is sensible and consistent to the author, this round catches almost everything else. The most important piece is the reading out loud. I used ReadPlease this time, and that android in my computer helped catch any number of issues:

1. Misspellings (the easy part).
2. Run-on sentences.
3. Awful dialog.
4. Pacing issues, both within a sentence-- when to add or drop a comma--and spanning a scene--when to chop up long sentences or combine short ones.
5. Repeated words and phrases.
6. A milieu of misses

I read along while the computer speaks, and I cannot begin to tell you how this helps. Issues jump off the page as do ideas on how to fix them.

After completing round three, my confidence in this book is absolutely brimming. The feedback I've received from my critique partners at the YA forum on WDC has been equally positive. When I compare this book with my first book and the feedback I've received, especially around voice - let's just say I've traveled light years.

When I look at the remaining rounds of my revision process, I hesitate.

---

Revision Round #4 - The automaton editor - bring on the pain

1. This is where I take the book chapter by chapter through manuscript editing software. I've used AutoCrit and been quite happy with the results.
2. This isn't so much about grammar or spelling, but more about finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability, etc.
3. This is tedious and painful. The Terminator is not kind.
4. Revise appropriately.

---

I'm thinking of giving round four a miss primarily because of how deep the revisions were from round three. A lot of the benefit of the automaton editor above: finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability... Heck, I've gone through that in detail already in round three and I feel excellent about it. I think I may run a couple of chapters through, just to see what it finds, but it's otherwise coming off my list for now.

---

Revision Round #5 - One last look - one rule - no MAJOR changes allowed

1. Gather any additional feedback and revise as needed (see round #2)
2. One more MS Word spelling & grammar check.
3. Final read through and tweaks.

---

Obviously this round goes on until the book is published. I'll continue to solicit feedback from my critique partners, and my immediate family and very close friends who will get a look at the book. When an agent discovers the book and my general delightfulness *WINKS*, the feedback will continue. And then when the book is sold, there will be an editor as well. So, round five's definition will change a bit. Also, the "no MAJOR changes allowed" rule will need to depend on who is giving me said advice.

Meanwhile, it's awfully hot out. I've finally cooled down from mowing the lawn this morning. It's time to get some reading done in the A/C and maybe play a half hour of Simpson's Road Rage on the Wii.

Mythos is now Urban Mythos

The first bit of interesting news for those that follow me is that I've retitled Mythos as Urban Mythos. It's a kind of catchy play on words. The key revisions will be completed today (a neat trick, considering my daughter and six other eleven-year-old girls will be occupying my house during Rachel's birthday sleepover). I'll definitely post an update on this, but suffice to say, rounds one through three of my revision process are complete.

At this point, I'm convinced  the book is in the kind of shape where I can now divide my time up between writing and refining the core of a query and a synopsis, while spending some time on revision round four. There is nothing quite like having your book read to you, even if by a deranged robot living within your computer. If only Jim Dale would donate his time.... *sighs* With experience comes a keener eye (and ear) for some of the less obvious issues such as repetition, cliche, pacing, etc. In years past, I relied on tools like AutoCrit.com to help me there, but right now, I'm feeling less obliged because of how pleased I am right with the book in its current state.

The book is still up for my critique partners at the YA forum to continue providing me the most excellent feedback a writer could ever receive, and so I will continue to tweak here and there, until such time as I must stop.

So, wish me luck with the tween girl set giggling, singing Karaoke, and generally being eleven year old girls as my son and I try to avoid being covered in nail polish. Of course, I did pop Sweet Caroline on their Karaoke DVD. I may need to join in.

Revisions - Incorporating Feedback

Last night, well after the fireworks were finished, I completed revising Mythos based on the many critiques of my wonderful friends at the YA Club on Writing.com. These folks have been reviewing chapters since the very first one I posted last fall. As they came in, I read each one, thanked the reviewer profusely and, many times, commented on one or two salient points they made. That was it, though. I filed the critique away, refusing to look back on what I'd written until the first draft was complete.

After finishing my second draft about a week ago (see my decrap-ification post), I broke open the folder of reviews. There were sixty-nine of them. Yes. 69. Inappropriate comments aside, let me just say that I felt a strange mixture of delight and horror. I had a ton of feedback on nearly almost every chapter I'd written! There's going to be lots of grammar corrections! Woo-Hoo! People are going to tell me if the characters and plot held up! Yay!

Yes, that was the "delight" portion. Onto the horror.

Sixty-nine reviews? That's a lot, isn't it? Have you ever decided to walk somewhere instead of driving, thinking, This won't be bad at all, only to find out about 60 minutes into your walk that you're not even a tenth of the way there? Yeah. This is a lot of feedback and advice to sort through, and often it feels like you are miles from your destination. You may get on a roll where a couple of reviews are primarily grammar related, with some easily fixed plot flaws or unrealistic dialog. And then you get to the killer review -- the one that points out a horrific and difficult-to-fix plot flaw, requiring you to rewrite five chapters. Or the one pointing out that your characters, who have been so consistent for ten chapters, suddenly act completely out of character. I mentioned this in my Triangle Effect post on The Crew. It's right then that you put your head on the desk and wish the teacher would just say it was nap time.


As far as revising based on critiques, like I implied, grammar is the easy bit. Loads of people are better at grammar than I am. It saves me so much time. Fresh sets of eyes always seem to find the repetitive use of words, the adverb misuse, etc. It's a huge help. As for comments on characterization and plot, well, these are the bits that sometimes cut deep. Let's review what revision round #2 is all about.

Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

1. Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
2. For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
3. For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points. 

• If I agree, revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

Each time an excellent reviewer pointed out a "big issue" as stated above, I immediately struggled with what to do about it. After a few moments of mental anguish and indecision, I returned to the three bulleted "rules" above. Obviously, if I agreed with their point, I revised, no matter how difficult. Review number sixty-nine offered one such colossal "big issue" (thanks Laura), but I concurred with the assessment. It required quite a bit of work to redress, and hopefully I've done a reasonably good job.

As for the reviews I disagreed with, well, emotion tends to get involved. The "rules" are meant to help you avoid emotion. Still, as writers, we tend to be a smidgen, um, protective of our babies.

Across the many reviews, there were a number of issues with which I disagreed. However, when multiple people raised the same issue in one fashion or another, I forced myself to revise. Heaven help someone if they tried talking to me while I was making that revision. *winks* All is fair in writing and revising, however. So, if only one or two people raised an issue with which I disagreed, I merrily passed it by, not even waving in my rear view mirror. When (not if) my fellow writers whose chapters I've reviewed disagree with my comments, they should philosophically run over my foot as they drive off, leaving my comments in the dust at my squashed shoe. I'd expect nothing less.

I can't thank these wonderful people enough: Laura, Airdale, Dezi, Tania, Vicky, Kurt, Ralene, Richard, Frankie, Mireyah, Annie, Dawn, and Ceri. Each of you have helped me make this novel better in so many ways. Thank you!!!

Now, I'm on to revision round #3! The good news is that I took care of step 1 already.


Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

1. Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
2. Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
3. Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
4. Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball.

Decrapification Complete!

I made it through the first round of revisions to Mythos today, my son's fifteenth birthday. Happy Birthday, kiddo. I blogged about my revision process a few weeks back, and as many of you know by now, completing round number one means that my novel is officially:

Yes, that means it no longer smells like a dog park before the cleanup crew arrives. Let's check the scorecard.

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification

1. Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
2. Read it and take copious notes all over the page. Can't put the check here yet. I'm halfway done.
3. Make all the changes from step #2.

As a result of these revisions, the word count has ballooned from nearly 71k to just north of 75k.In and of itself I'm cool with that. Out went passages that didn't advance plot or characterization. In went an epilogue to tie things up a bit and leave open the possibility of a sequel. This is a pretty good example of what happens in my second draft -- as I write my way toward the end of the novel, I discover more and more bits of back story, plot points, or characterizations I'll need upon revising. Hence, the initial increase in word count.

During the second round of revisions, I expect to remove more than add. Speaking of which, let's revisit what round #2 is all about.


Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

1. Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
2. For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
3. For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points. 

• If I agree, revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

It's an exciting time. Being my own worst critic makes round #2 far more appealing and less painful to me. Plus, I promised my family they could read the second draft. Once Rona finishes Catching Fire (yes, I finally got her to read Hunger Games, so now she's hooked), she'll jump on Mythos.

I think I'll start round two tomorrow. I owe my YA writing buddies some reviews tonight.

Decrap-ification Defined

Recently, I talked about my revision process, in which I coined the term DECRAP-IFICATION. Some folks who didn't read that post have since asked me what I meant by this semi-vulgar term. It's quite simple, really. Your novel is like a lawn you spend all sorts of time cultivating, trying to make it a lush, green paradise.

As many of you know, I've got a little black pug who goes by the name Tinkerbell. Tink, our four-legged friend, does not use the toilet. Being a good little pooch, she uses the great outdoors to relieve herself. When we walk her around the park or down the street, we carry a baggie to dispose of her "doings" properly. (Darn, I love the use of "doings", almost as much as "leavings".) But at other times, her doopity-doops find their way onto our lawn. Guaranteed that if my son walks her, they will remain there until such time that I wander the yard, plastic bag and pooper scooper in hand.

As I make my way around our property, I am very clearly DECRAP-IFYING the lawn. Head down, eyes scanning a 180 degree area before me, I carefully step from one spot to the next, looking for that which sullies the lawn. In other words, I need to get the crap off the lawn before taking a carefree stroll about the yard, laying down weed killer, proper fertilizer and additional seed.

It's the same process with a novel. This may be crass, I realize, but my first drafts are littered with crap, and until I scoop that nasty stuff off the pages, there's not much sense working on the finer points. I'll just wind up stepping in a pile of my own "doings" and losing the attention to detail I need for the later revisions.

Mythos Revision Update

An update to the Mythos revision process. a new checkmark goes to step #2 of the Decrap-ification round. Tomorrow night, we move on to step #3.

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification (in progress)

1. Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
2. Read it and take copious notes all over the page.
3. Make all the changes from step #2. 

I've taken loads of notes and have given myself a lot of work to do. This includes a small epilogue as well. I'm really excited about this, however, because I love revising. The hard part - giving birth to the story and characters - is done. Now I've got to groom the unruly little beast.

As a side note, I'm debating whether to combine step #3 of this revision round with Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback. That's where I take all the critiques I've received so far and make those changes as well. I've got mixed feelings. Combining will actually make round #2 easier, because the critiques are based on the first draft. The critiques won't always sync up with a revised draft. On the other hand, I need to give my own concerns priority over my critique partners.

Procrastination on this decision sounds like a good idea.

The Revision Process

Elana Johnson had not just one great post but a second great post on Getting to 100%. Her first blog entry was thoroughly rah-rah, sis-boom-bah about getting your novel and your query to 100% before even thinking about shipping them out. Her second post elaborated on the original premise by stating that getting to 100% was more about an emotional state -- are you confident enough to send your babies out into the publishing world?

This is a fascinating premise, because we writers are not always the most confident bunch. Cold rejection for our query and manuscript waits behind every rock in the big, scary world, ready to spring forth and say, "Boo." Actually, it's more likely to be a jack-in-the-box with copy paper stapled to its head, the word, "Boo" printed in Times New Roman. Naturally, we will try to interpret the meaning of "Boo" and make ourselves neurotic.

Since I'm in the first round of revisions of Mythos, I began to wonder at what point I might be confident enough to say that this urban fantasy of mine is 100%. So, let's see. What are my revision plans?

Revision Round #1 - Decrap-ification (in progress)

1. Kill some recycled trees and print the first draft.
2. Read it and take copious notes all over the page. Can't put the check here yet. I'm halfway done.
3. Make all the changes from step #2.

Revision Round #2 - Incorporating feedback

1. Gather all the critiques from the critique group (in this case, my YA writing pals on writing.com).
2. For any editing/grammar nits, revise appropriately.
3. For the "big issues", like characterization, plot, setting, voice, etc., decide if I agree with these points. 

• If I agree, revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but several others do, consider that I may be wrong and revise appropriately. 
• If I don't agree, but only one or two others do, the author wins. (Stephen King rule)

Revision Round #3 - Grammar and Dialog

1. Judicious use of MS Word spell and grammar check. Correct as needed.
2. Read the book out loud, or use tools like ReadPlease to read the book to me.
3. Immediately fix the obvious grammatical issues.
4. Immediately fix the horrendous dialog that the ear makes far more obvious than the eyeball.

Revision Round #4 - The automaton editor - bring on the pain

1. This is where I take the book chapter by chapter through manuscript editing software. I've used AutoCrit and been quite happy with the results.
2. This isn't so much about grammar or spelling, but more about finding repetition, clichés, poor sentence pacing, readability, etc.
3. This is tedious and painful. The Terminator is not kind.
4. Revise appropriately.

 Revision Round #5 - One last look - one rule - no MAJOR changes allowed

1. Gather any additional feedback and revise as needed (see round #2)
2. One more MS Word spelling & grammar check.
3. Final read through and tweaks.

I have that rule in round #5 to ensure I actually finish. I've heard of artists who keep going back to the same painting, and never finish. There's always something to fix, to touch up, or to re-do. Life just isn't long enough, and I have too many other ideas for me to allow that to happen. If I were to reach round #5, and the book still had major structural problems not fixed in an earlier round, shame on me, and I'd have to change my plans.

However, it's at the end of round #5 that I expect to cross that emotional hurdle, where I can say, "Yeah, this is good." I won't go back and read the manuscript again, except to help building the synopsis and query. *shudders* Okay, let me just get through the revisions before worrying about the query and synopsis.

Revision Time!!!!

I was planning on spending some time with Elliot and the rest of the Children of Midian, polishing it up based on some recent agent advice, and then querying. However, after a long week away from Mythos, I've made the executive decision to return to the Knucklehead City. *snorts*

Knucklehead City, you say? When I began to write Mythos, I had absolutely nothing in mind for a title, so I figured, let's just throw a working title up there on the first page, you know, for chuckles. And the working title was Creatures of Knucklehead City. Or, Creatures for short. It wound up as Mythos much later on.

In any case, I printed the manuscript yesterday - double-spaced, double-sided - loads of recycled paper. And last night, while listening to a combination of fawning over Simon Cowell and numerous performances on American Idol, I started reading. I made it one and a half pages in, before completely re-sequencing the opening paragraphs. So I guess I can say I'm now in revision mode.

Wicked cool. Can't wait till I'm done.