Motivational Mondays

This is going to be a rather selfish post.

I just finished my first draft of my WIP! Woot! My goal was to finish yesterday, but since that didn't happen, I'm one day over the 4 month mark. But that's okay. I finished 89k in 4 months! *Pats myself on the back*

Okay, now that I'm over that, I can let the truth sink in-my first draft is a rambling hot ass mess, but, luckily for me, I love editing. It's the part I really get excited about. The correcting. The cutting. The making sure my characters stay true to themselves. The making sure I don't have any plot holes. Oh yeah. I'm stoked.

I know some people hate this stage, and I completely understand why. It's when you get up close and personal with your MS and after awhile, it squeezes you so tight, you can't tell up from down. You've read the same typo over and over again and guess what, you still haven't caught it. Oh, and that awkward sentence that tells the reader absolutely nothing? Yep. Makes perfect sense to you.

This is when you have to take a step back. Put it away for awhile. Work on something else. If you're going the traditional route, work on your query. Come back to it in a week, or hell, even a month. If you don't have fresh eyes when you read your MS, you're going to miss a hell of a lot of errors. The truth is, you'll always miss something (that's what professional editors are for...or a kick ass CP), but with fresh eyes, may the odds be ever in your favor (sorry, couldn't resist)!

I know there is a ton of stuff I need to change without even needing to reread, such as, one of my characters motives completely changed about 20k in so yeah, unless I want her to look like a psycho, I need to change all that. I'll edit things like that now, and after, I'll stash it away and come back to it.

I have plenty of things to keep me busy, like WriteOnCon! So excited! This will be my first year participating and even though my MS isn't ready to see the light of day, some awesome members of AQC convinced me it will be well worth it!

Oh, and I have some books I need to brush up on (also recommended by AQCers [Agent Query Connect - check it out if you haven't already!])- Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King and The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass (who is also an agent).

Awesome books, go check 'em out!

OK. So I guess this was kind of motivational, right? The name of the game is "Get 'er done!" and "Fresh eyes are the best eyes!"

Now go write. Yeah, I'm talking to you.