4/26–4/30—I got this!
I spent April and March revising my YA manuscript. Putting in changes via my laptop, typing directly into the file. Then at the end of April, I printed everything out to prepare for editing by hand. Editing by hand allows me to go deeper and really immerse myself into the flow of the writing. The only problem is those edits have to be typed—so I’m basically doubling my effort from any draft I do on the computer. Old habits die hard, so the last two drafts of my books are all hand-edited. The first week of hand-edits felt great. I was working on the partial, the first 100 pages that were used to sell the book. These pages weren’t perfect, but they’d been edited a few times before, so these edits were pretty straight forward. Text tweaks, smoothing out syntax, and tightening language. Every two or three chapters, I had to go in and do some deep paragraph revisions to match the plot to the new direction, but it was pretty much a walk in the park. (Spoiler alert: It gets harder.)
I completed hand edits to chapters 1–8.

5/3–5/7—This is kind of rough!
Sometimes when you edit, you are so confused by what’s on the page that you’re asking yourself: Who wrote this? The chapters that I edited during the first week of May were those kinds of chapters. I didn’t understand the flow of the chapters. The chapter breaks seemed to come out of nowhere. The scenes that seemed that they belonged together were split into different chapters. There was a lot of repagination, scene shifting and chapter restructuring. I had to write these coded messages to myself—go to page 182, bring to previous chapter, move to next page. It took some digging and physical manipulation of the pages, but I figured it out. What an adventure in problem solving and decision making.
I completed hand edits to Chapters 9–18.

5/10–5/14—Taking my medicine
 Because I know how hard it is to type up edits—especially complicated edits, I break up the typing. Two weeks of editing, one week of typing. Two more weeks of editing and one more week of typing. For such a straight forward activity, typing up edits can be quite frustrating. Basically the complexity of the task depends on the complexity of the edits. When I jumped into the typing it was like jumping into an ice-cold bath. I was hoping typing would be a nice break from editing, instead It was a shock to my system. The bottom line is that it takes time. I spent hours in the morning typing, did my day job, then spent hours after work typing, often finishing between 11 p.m. and midnight. As you can imagine, I was not impressed with myself. (Who decided we would type edits on four chapters a day?!? I complained about it, I asserted that the pace was not sustainable. Unfortunately I am the worker and the management and the management did not change the schedule. She said we had to do this or we would not meet our deadline.) At the same time, I was pretty impressed with myself because as I labored through the typing, I could see all the edits I made. Nothing makes me happier than to see writing getting tighter and finding its voice! It is an honor and a joy to see the narrative growing stronger!
Typed up the edits I scribbled on Chapters 1–18. (Also discovered that typing four chapters a day is an excessively challenging goal)

5/17–5/21—Facing the beast
 One thing I’ve noticed about myself as I become a more seasoned writer is that I’ve become both more regimented and more fluid. Since I started project managing my writing process a few years ago, my productivity shot through the roof. Now I schedule out my writing chapter by chapter, and day by day. I know what I’m working on every day throughout the course of developing a book. The scheduling gives me consistent parameters to follow so that I don’t have to dither and try to figure out what I’m going to do everyday. I just show up and do the work. At the same time, I’m not as wedded to perfection. In my first two decades of writing, I would have NEVER sent out anything I didn’t edit at least three times. Now, because I am supremely confident in my final draft, I am way more likely to send out the first draft of something to my editors and tell them, hey, this is just for structure and plot, I haven’t fixed the language yet, what do you think? With my YA novel, after I turned in the first draft and I got the edits back, I wrote a whole new backstory for the book’s antagonists and integrated them in this draft. I’m definitely building some of it as I write. Which is why I wasn’t so sure about this week of edits. The second half of the book was basically rewritten, which meant my edits were DENSE. Facing that level of edits combined with the need to redirect everything was a major challenge. There was a lot of procrastination, a lot of shock, and resistance. Yet each time I put forth the effort and pushed past the procrastination, I could see what the path ahead needed to be. Through positive self-talk, fluid thinking and faith that the right story will evolve, I made it through.
Completed hand edits on Chapters 19–28. (Also tried to convince myself multiple times that we should be editing on the computer—not by hand. The part of me that thrives on hand edits won.)

Bonus
I had to make a video for a virtual book presentation for When the World Turned Upside Down. It took quite a few recordings before I could memorize my thoughts and not look too dead or too crazy-eyed on the video. Let my daughter tell it, I did not succeed. Lol. I also had a Zoom interview with a book blogger that was inspiring and fun. She’s turning it into a podcast, which I look forward to hearing.

LOGISTICS
I was pretty solidly getting up three or so hours before work and getting my writing done in the morning, but as the writing grew more challenging, I grew more lax with my start time. This month, I ended up doing a lot of split sessions. Getting the bulk done in the morning and then writing again after work. Did it feel like I was writing all day? Yes. Did this feeling motivate me to start earlier and get the writing done before work? No. To be fair though, the work became so dense that it took much longer to finish a chapter, so for the most part, I was unable to finish my work in the a.m. It wasn’t just the procrastination that made need to write afterwork—the editing was objectively harder and took more time. Once again, the dance between being regimented and fluid appears. I followed my schedule and practiced discipline to get the chapters done (mostly) as planned—and when I did miss a daily goal, I made sure to get it done through the week. But I was not rigid with my writing time. When I observed myself needing more time and starting to write after work, I adapted my schedule and my expectations. I expect my approach to shift many times over the course of the book and I will be fluid in taking whatever approach I need to meet my goals.

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REFLECTION

The development of a novel happens on many different levels during all points of the process. I don’t have to know everything at the outset of the process and I don’t have to carry the burden of worry if I have holes in my story. Through the editing process and circling deeper and deeper into the core of the story, solutions will emerge. I love the certainty that grows with every draft. At the outset in the first draft, there are so many possibilities—partially because you don’t intimately know your story, your characters, or the themes of the story. But as you write, rewrite, edit, revise, you circle close and closer to the heart of the story, you get to know your characters intimately, and suddenly things you weren’t sure about before have a clear answer. I try to remember that this knowing comes from constant and consistent engagement, so I don’t have to waste my time worrying about what I don’t know when I’ve only just begun.

Self-Talk Script: I will trust that I have the solutions to any writing challenge. I will not assume that just because I don’t have the answer right now that I will never have the answer. I will write with the faith that the story wants to be told—and if I stay engaged in the work the best path will emerge.