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. :-)
YES! All that hard work has got to pay off, Jan.
ReplyDeleteI also spent 11 months of this year revising! Maybe it's something in the water. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHadn't thought of that, Jennifer. I'm asking for a new water filter for Christmas!
DeleteOh, 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.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations 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.
Lois Lowry is a writing goddess!
DeleteIn 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.
Yes! Here's to a year of revisions followed by a year of sales! *clinks imaginary glass*
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joy!
Delete