Hello, World, Meet Eva

Psst! Edits are done!

Edits are done! Victory laps have yet to be made (my brain is still a little too mushy for wholehearted celebration). It's statistic time!

Because so much of writing a novel is invisible to all but the author (and the people who live with her), I really enjoy when I have quantitative stats.

Length

I'm notorious for overwriting, which means each edit was as much about trimming as it was about refining the story.

• Draft 1 = 124,615 words / 444 pages
• Draft 2 = 120,887 words / 431 pages
• Draft 3 = 119,771 words / 427 pages

Of course, my goal was to cut 10% from the original novel. While I've probably cut and rewritten over 30%, I didn't achieve the size reduction I wanted. I still have 7,617 words to cut. That translates to 17 words a page. Doable, but difficult. In reality, I'm expecting my trusted readers to point out scenes that go too long, and I can trim chunks first. I did a lot of chunk-editing this last round, but not enough.

Time

As I pointed out earlier, the actual writing of the novel is one of the shortest parts of the process:

Story and Character Building
Days: 17 Time: 22 hours

Outline
Days: 24 Time: 26 hours

Write
Days: 72 Time: 127 hours

Edit
Days: 63 Time: 95 hours

Total to Date
Days: 176 Time: 270 hours

Percentage of Time Spent on Eva's Novel That Didn't Involve Writing: 52%

Given that in the future I want to write 2-3 books a year, I'm really going to need to pick up the pace. But for now, I'm content. Averaging 1.5 hours a day on top of work and life is pretty good.

Yo. I'm ready to be critiqued.

The next step is a fun one for me: Sending the novel to my readers for feedback. I've polished the book; it's ready.

It's not perfect. I was sorely tempted to do another round of edits before showing it to anyone, but there comes a point where keeping the book to myself is counterproductive. I can do another round of edits when I implement changes. Because I know there'll be changes. Right now, the book feels done. The scenes feel complete.

But they're not. I know this from experience. I'm so close to my work, there are going to be things I'll miss that no matter how many times I read the novel.

Now...to celebrate!