-ignores how long ago my last post was-
Today I did it. I finished my revision of my novel, which I affectionately named Version 2 in my files.
It may not seem like a big deal, but I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle a lot with having the focus and energy to sit down and work on my writing.
We moved in June, and I’m not saying I believe in feng shui but I definitely have a lot more energy in the new place than I ever did in the old place.
I recently came off of a longer-than-usual depressive episode – I’m talkin’ weeks of crying every day, wanting to just sleep, feeling panic and sadness in most moments of my day. If you had told me a few weeks ago, “Hey, you’re going to be okay in a few weeks and you’re actually going to finish those revisions you keep ignoring,” I’d have said “yeah right, sure, that’s what you want me to think, but my depression is telling me I’m worthless and should give up on everything that isn’t necessary to live.”
Too much?
Maybe.
But anyways, yes, I did it. Last week I spent 12 hours – yes, 12 hours – working on revisions. My brain essentially collapsed, I sent a few chapters to some friends, and then today I finished those revisions.
I went from 60,349 words to 87,533 words – just a tad longer than Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Not terribly long by any means, but I think for a YA Debut Novel maybe it could be worth something.
I plan on not touching the damn thing for at least a week – I’m going to jump into the Sims4 and just dickin’ around on the computer and trying to un-process everything and work on fun stuff, like organizing my notes. My notes are a mess of tabs and pages in OneNote where I try to keep track of everything from made-up plants to what background characters are like. So, it might be fun to just go back to world-building and not-so-much plot-building.
Hopefully I’ll have another update in a few weeks, so here’s hopin’.
-b.
Briari Hallow 