When push comes to shove

Earlier this year – starting in January, in fact – I started revision work on a novel I’d written in the past. I had not noted the beginning of this work on my Author's Log blog, for some STRANGE reason (I should have, to keep track of it!), but I checked my file on the hard drive and, apparently, I started on January 22. Anyway, I wrote this book during NaNoWriMo in 2011, and it had been sitting on my hard drive ever since. Well, because I make it a point to revise a novel every year, I selected this one for revision. (I am also going to be revising two other GHOST Group books that I wrote but that will happen later in the year.)

When I started to work on revising the novel, I really didn’t have a timeline for it. I figured I would just revise it here and there and just work on it during the weekends. (I do revisions on the weekends.) So I just worked on it here and there without any rush or desire to finish it by a certain date.

That was, until I came across a call for novels that included the type of novel I was revising. The good news was that they offered an advance for books they accepted. (I liked THAT idea a lot!) The bad news, though, is that they were only reading manuscripts until a certain date.

For me, at the time that I saw this particular site, that day was 3 weeks from now. If I wanted to submit my novel to them, I was going to have to get my butt in gear and finish revising it!

When it comes to revising a book, I take the process slowly. I give the book a read-through, making notes on changes. Then I do any necessary research that my revisions will require. (In this case, I had to once again do research on Elizabeth Bathory as well as asking a Hungarian friend about how words are said in Hungarian.) Next, I tackle the book again, adding the required research and fixing it up. Now, after I do this, I usually go through the whole thing once, let it rest, read it over again, make any changes, throw it to my beta(s) for feedback, do more revision, more reading and any last bits of work before I consider it done. But because my timeline was short, however, I had to read it as I went, making sure everything was “right” and correct. I had to fix typos then and there and give it my absolute best writing. I didn’t have the luxury of time to take revisions at my own pace or have my betas go over it; I had a deadline coming up and I needed to get this done fast!

Another thing that helped me to get this done to the best of my ability in such a short time was to completely throw myself into it. I surrounded myself with all things vampire. I read vampire books, watched vampire movies, looked at images of vampires online, went over quotes from vampire books and movies. I also had to cut back on social media, as well as email. I already don't have much of a social life and I usually don't hang out with friends, so that was not a time issue for me. (Maybe it's a good thing that I'm a loner?) I literally had to hunker down in the writing cave and really put the focus on this book and this fictional world. I kept the story in my head, thinking about the characters and what happens next, and worked on this book every single day of April up until the deadline – which was the 20^th. (I finished revisions on the 19^th.) Everything else I was working on was put on hold. I put THIS book front and center. It was my ONLY project until the deadline rolled around.

I am glad I got the revisions done in time. Of course, towards the end, I worried that the book would not be up to snuff or that they would hate it. But I had worked too hard on it to give up on it. I had to believe in myself. I had to believe in my book. I gave it my best effort and polished the story to the best of my abilities.

So, I finished the work. The revisions on that novel were done and I sent the book off in time. Even if it’s not accepted, I am happy that I have another novel ready to submit somewhere. I had already submitted a novel to another publisher this year (and they accepted that book), so if this one doesn’t make the cut, I will hold on to it to submit next year. And next year, I’ll start working on revisions for another novel. (Possibly the YA novel I finished writing earlier this year.)

I am back to working on several projects at once. The book slated for me to finish writing this month is a poetry book, and I have 8 more poems to write for it to complete it. I am looking forward to working on that and I am confident it will get done in time.

Meanwhile, I will also be waiting to hear back about my vampire novel. I am excited about this book. I’d love to see it get turned into a TV series. But first, I am going to try to get it published as a book!