The Year of Rewrites--Jan Blazanin


2012 has been a year of writing-related firsts, challenges and frustrations, exciting accomplishments-- and rewrites.

January—Two years of planning, writing, and revising produced a finished first draft. Then my story was off to my writing group for critiquing.

February—Based on their suggestions, I made more revisions.

March--The manuscript was finally off to my agent. In between bouts of anxiously biting my nails, I put together my first writing conference presentation, “Plotting the Novel” for the April SCBWI-Iowa Conference. My time allotment was two hours!

April—The long-awaited letter arrived from my agent and her assistant. Although they loved the idea, my story was far from being ready to submit. Think major rewrite. Could I do it? With that churning in the back of my brain, I gave my presentation to a gracious SCBWI audience. Fun!!!

May—Rewriting

June—Rewriting                       

July—Rewriting 

August—You guessed it: Rewriting

September—Rewrite finished. After comments from my writing group and more revisions, it’s back to my agent. Holding my breath!

October—Writing Month Extraordinaire
My agent responded super-fast. Unfortunately, she asked for more revisions. Not as many. Not as extensive. But more.
In Iowa City I heard the legendary Lois Lowry, and got my hands on a signed copy of SON. If you haven’t read it, DO!
Spent a weekend retreating with fellow authors, participated in the Wonder of Words book festival, and attended the fall SCBWI-Iowa conference.

November—Two writer friends reviewed my finished revisions. 
    
December—My agent signed off on my revisions!!!! My manuscript is good to go.

On to 2013, The Year of Book Sales. :-)

Comments

  1. YES! All that hard work has got to pay off, Jan.

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  2. I also spent 11 months of this year revising! Maybe it's something in the water. ;-)

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    1. Hadn't thought of that, Jennifer. I'm asking for a new water filter for Christmas!

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  3. Oh, I'm jealous you got to see Louis Lowry! I especially loved her Anastasia books; I read them over and over when I was a kid.
    Congratulations that your agent signed off on your revisions! Revisions are hard work because just when you think you have it all done, something else comes up.

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    1. Lois Lowry is a writing goddess!
      In the midst of my third round of revisions I dreamed that during a writing presentation red marks kept appearing on the manuscript I was using as an example. Guess that qualifies as a nightmare.

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  4. Yes! Here's to a year of revisions followed by a year of sales! *clinks imaginary glass*

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