Editing, Revising, Hell

First of all. I'm watching Dora in some way that is unfathomable ironic, yet is ironic nonetheless. It's ironically cool in an ironic sense. That was just to confuse you. Onto the actual stuff.

For those of you who know me, I did NaNoWriMo last year. I also did it this year. I'm a veteran of NaNoWriMo. Just for a brief summary, NaNoWriMo is a competition or sorts, where you race to type a 50000 word novel in one month. The month in question is November. This was my second NaNo.

This year, I actually like my story. I'm planning on editing/revising it and sending it to an agent to I can get it published. right now though, before I even start reading it, I gave a copy of the file to a friend of mine to read. He printed it out, and now pretty much my whole class is bugging me to read it. I'm already a famous author, you could say. Apparently it's really good though, yet I'm still working up the guts to give it a full read through. It's scary, because you think it'll be bad. So, I'm of conflicting opinions regarding reading it. Luckily for me, I have a book report due next week, so I can't read anything until I type up the rough copy. The book I'm doing my book report on is The Law of Nines, by Terry Goodkind. It's a pretty good book, despite the awful reviews. Then again, I'm not a picky reader, and the action was almost non-stop, so I have no qualms with it.

I'm going to put some revision tips here just because I love you all so much. Not really though. I just need to procrastinate. Okay, it's just one thing, but it helps. A lot. Seriously.

Before you even start editing and revising, read through your story and take notes of what happens each chapter. Then put your notes on separate index cards/sticky notes/dead bodies. Now you basically have a movable version of your storyline. Try arranging it in different combinations until you find something that you like. If you're stuck for ideas, just scramble them all up. You might stick with the storyline you have, or you might find some even better way of doing it. This helps. Seriously. It may sound stupid, but from personal experience, you can have a lot of fun with it, as well as find an even better way to do your story. Add some events in the middle if you want. It's basically fixing your storyline/plot.

After that, revise and edit to your heart's content. Just remember, editing and revising a novel, a NaNo novel especially, is Hell. Remember to keep your red pen at hand and use your Inner Editer in large doses. Potentially lethal doses. It wants you. The voices are telling me to edit my story now. Shut up voices. I won't make a sandwich. No. NO. STOP SAYING THAT. YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME VOICES. I HATE YOU VOICES. FML.