On the editing road

Good Afternoon peeps!

Today is going to be a little bit of a hodgepodge post, as one might expect from me.

To start with, I completed Camp Nanowrimo this month! My goal was 30k words because at the beginning of the month I was still in Michigan. I wasn't certain how much time I'd have to write, and thusly I aimed lower than the 50k; it's a goal that I'm comfortable with. The second reason was because in April I tried to get the same 50k because it was relatively easy for me to do. However, due to moving and being emotionally shut down, I only ended up writing about 10k words that month. It sucked. I went through a horrible slide and it showed in everything I was trying to do. Regardless, both of those things inspired me to go half way between the two goals and I was successful! Yay!

Now that my July writing goal is complete, it is time to edit Book 1. Yep, that means I've been on the hunt for a decent checklist for four editing passes. I don't want to do less than that. Basically what I'm looking for is a way I can go through it to fix plot holes, get rid of characters that are unneeded etc... If any of you have suggestions, please let me know. I would greatly appreciate some tips.

While I was perusing editing checklists and what not, I stumbled across an interesting blog post that I both agreed with and disagreed with. It can be found here: http://www.salon.com/2010/11/02/nanowrimo/

Basically the author of this post (albeit a somewhat older post), explained that a lot of crap comes out of first time authors because of Nano. I'm not disagreeing with that. It's a great achievement to write 50k words in a month; but assuming that it is perfect or masterful is ridiculous. That is where I agree with the author. You *need* to edit. You need to embrace the editing phase - as much as it may suck. I haven't even submitted to publishers nor received rejection letters, to know that this is true. However, I believe that if you have a good system to follow when you do get to the editing stage, that the process will be simpler. It's hard to admit your work isn't a masterpiece, but in order to get to into that category, you have to work hard. There is no easy way around it. Just accept that, be happy with your achievement, and then move on to edit it later in the year.

One of my best friends, Matt, directed me to writing.com. It's a wonderful site that has a free sign up. You create a profile, add something to your portfolio, introduce yourself in forums, and you are ready to go. In short, the first scene of "Agnus the Beast" is up on there for other authors and editors to review. I'm only on the first edit so you don't get to see it yet. If you are an aspiring author, feel free to add me! Look for jagtress :D

And the random part of the blog post is Living World Season 3, the story line of Guild Wars 2 has been released! I'm having a blast playing it. They've made some epic changes to classes, fractals, gear infusions, etc... If you are a gamer like me, and you play guild wars, definitely check it out!

As always, you can find me streaming on twitch.tv/jagtress. Follow my facebook page or twitter for updates to when I go live. www.facebook.com/jagtresstwitch and @jagtress for twitter. Noticing a theme? If you are lazy, there are buttons on all of my pages on this site. Hit me up if you want to play!

Until next time, have an amazing week!

#editing #nano #twitch #guildwars2