Steelgod September - Let the Edits Begin

on Tuesday, September 6, 2011
This isn't going to be a very exciting post, but this isn't a very exciting blog, so you get what you paid for.

Basically I'm going through the edit of Might of the Steelgods (which is actually The Destroyer of the World, but I haven't got used to calling it that yet). This is a big, major, serious edit, which also means it's going to take a large chunk of time. This is basically the edit I'll be pitching and (should push come to shove) the edit I'd ePublish should pitching completely fail me. Still undecided about that latter part, but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

So hey, I have a system. I've actually never done an edit this extensive before (Paradise Seekers had a pretty intense edit, but even it wasn't as in-depth as this one will be) so I've been trying to wrap my brain around how I'd do it.

Here's the points I rested on:

- I am confident when actually writing from scratch. I'm able to get into the story and the writing comes easier.
- On the flip side, when I just go in and edit pieces/parts it can be difficult. Sentence edits are easy, as are dialogue edits, but when I'm changing a small part of a larger scene, the lack of flow can throw me off.

So here's what I'm gonna do. I already re-read Steelgods once over the weekend, and now I'm going through it again at work. I'm breaking it apart by chapters, and then writing snippets of what I want changed at work. So that's fine and good.

Next, in the evening I'm going to pull of the original document on the Macbook, and then do a transcribe edit to my desktop (the Mini). That way I'm still writing, I still have the scenes, and if there are particular words/pacing bits that I liked I can keep them, but I'm intending to mostly write it as if I was re-writing it.

I'm going to try and do 2-3 chapters a day (I can type about 90-100 wpm if I'm blitzing, and so I'm assuming this'll go pretty quick). If I did around that amount I'd be done in ~2 weeks, which would be ideal. I'm allowing a buffer for when I don't get my chapter notes down at work, but those are going pretty quick so I'm not too worried.

Also, this means I'm going to be actually writing, which I need. All weekend I kept thinking I was forgetting to do something important, that nagging in the back of my brain, when the itch that needed scratching was me writing. I'd go crazy if I didn't actually write this month, but instead of trying to write a whole new project and edit Steelgods, we are going for the best of both worlds here.

After that I may spend another month writing (October) and then hit the edits. I also plan on spending that month submitting Steelgods to every place in the whole world. So hopefully it doesn't suck by that point.

That's it from me. Oh, and I'll also be doing minor Gears edits since it's going through writing group. And I'm playing Adam's Pathfinder game. So I'm going to be busy, big surprise.

Here's some Freddy in memory of him. If you don't know how Freddy Mercury is, you are a bad person.

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