As I’m past the half way point in the second draft I thought I would do a more in-depth post about how it’s all going.
First off I am feeling a lot happier with this draft than the first one. I keep a list of revisions I want to make for each one, adding to it as I go along, I don’t like to make changes as I go along. For the first draft the list of revisions notes was big, loads of book ones bullet points and at least a couple for each chapter. This time round there are a few tweaks I want to make to some chapters and alongside some other changes to how I describe some characters and locations.
The story feels like it flows a lot better, I think I’ve managed to arrange it in such a way that it has a good pace but allows for a few quieter moments to show more of different characters. It’s been easier to write as well, having done the first draft and revised outline I’ve known what I needed to do and it has felt right.
So overall I am happy with it. It’s not perfect, far from it, and is going to need a good editor and beta readers to finish it. The plan now is to finish the second draft and then make the few revisions I have in mind, which should take me until mid-July. Then I will hire an editor and put the call out for beta readers to do a story line pass before moving on to the line-by-line editing and improvement.
Still on schedule for a release before the end of the year. I have my own date I am aiming to release it for but whether I meet that depends on how much editing is required. I’m not going to rush the book out if it is not ready, but I’m also going to make sure I don’t over-edit it as well.
Onwards I go.