Pitch Wars Edits / Writing Progress Report 2

YAAAAAASSSSSSS! I turned in my first round of edits in yesterday night to my awesome mentor Brianna and I am both thrilled and nervous! It's also the last day of September! Which is grand, because I love October. I may just have to get a pumpkin latte to celebrate!

Anyway, so here's the skinny on my first round of edits. If you missed my first progress post last week, click here. Last time I talked about what I learned about myself in the process, this time I'm going to post about my method for it.

First and foremost I gathered all my notes from my edit letter and my video call from Brianna into my handy dandy writing notebook and made a list. The photo below is a simplified list I wrote up, with in depth details on the preceding pages (that I did not post). On the right side of the notebook is a progress log showing which chapters I worked on which day. I'm one of those people that works better in chronological order (gives me a sense of flow). As I write I also tend to jot notes down on a sticky and add them in.

 

My handwriting is pretty messy, but you'll notice that chapters 6, 7, and 12 were chapters that I had to work on for a while. What do they all have in common? They're scenes that has or leads to romantic tension. Yeah, the *feels* are tough for me. Luckily, Brianna sent me some really good articles to read. An article from Roni Loren was included which resulted in me divesting all of her blog posts for writers. I forgot which post it was, but Roni suggested the book below so I ordered it.

 

 

I found the book to be extremely helpful. It's not something to depend on entirely, but it helps when you get stumped and is pretty easy to navigate, so I recommend it.

 

So after I incorporated all edits I made another list for my read through:

 

 

A read through is a MUST. For me, I loaded my ms onto my Kindle so I could look at it in a different medium. This helps spotting issues you wouldn't otherwise notice.

 

During my read through I was able to read my changes with the rest of the novel in a short span to see if they worked or not. Two of my edits in chapter 4, and of course, 12, did not. So I ended up rewriting those again. But besides that, the ms read better. Things not included in my checklist were things like varying sentence structure, word choice, taking out passive voice, renaming chapter titles, and etc, which I changed as I read.

 

My draft is INFINITELY better than the draft I submitted to Pitch Wars. I love that I can see the improvements after having a mentor. My ms is almost there, but I think with a round of line-edits I can get it where it needs to be.

 

Edits are tough though. I was starting to hate the ms because I couldn't get some scenes to work, but after my reread, I fell in love with it all over again. I suffer from bouts of doubt from time to time, but I am also proud of myself and hopeful of where Diamond Queen will go.

 

To end, here is a song that I feel encompasses Diamond Queen. If I imagine the story like a movie, this would be playing at the end credits.

 

 

Lyrics:

 

Some days

It's hard to see

If I was a fool

Or you a thief...

Made it through the maze

You found my one in a million

And now you're just a page torn from the story I'm building

 

And all I gave you is gone

Tumble like it was done

Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake

Thought we built a dynasty, like nothing ever made

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

 

The scar I can't reverse

When the more it heals, the worse it hurts

Gave you every piece of me,

Don't wanna risk missing

Don't know how to be so close to someone so distant

 

And all I gave you is gone

Tumble like it was done

Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake

Thought we built a dynasty, like nothing ever made

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

 

It all fell down

It all fell down

It all fell

It all fell down

It all fell down

It all fell

It all fell down

It all fell down ehhh

It all fell down

It all fell down

It all fell down

 

And all I gave you is gone

Tumble like it was done

Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake

Thought we built a dynasty, like nothing ever made

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

 

It all fell

It all fell down

It all fell down ehhh

It all fell down

It all fell down

It all fell down

(And all I gave you is gone)

It all fell

It all fell down

It all fell down

Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up