Edits and Revisions

I love when a book gets to the editing stage, as it means I've actually finished and submitteded the whole novel! As a panster, I'm never quite sure how a story will end until I get there, and I'm still trying to decide if I should plan a little more. Like many other writers, the characters are the most important element of a novel for me and I prefer to set them up then let them play. But my plot sometimes get a little lost on the way, and occasionally I have to rework an ending.

This week, I was delighted to receive the first edits for my new tween book, The Jigsaw Puzzle, which will be coming soon from MuseItUp Publishing. Fortunately, my editor really likes the story and there are no issues with the plot, nor too many corrections as far as I can see from my quick glance. I'm really looking forward to going through it all in the next day or two, with the benefit of her professional experience and advice.

I also submitted another children's story, shorter and for younger children, to an online publisher who bought one of my previous children's stories. Although they really like the story overall, this one needs a slightly stronger ending. I was very pleased to get the opportunity to revise the ending and submit again - which I did right away this morning! I'll let you know if it's successful.

I'm also redrafting and revising an adult historical that had some very good feedback from the first publisher I tried, but some elements of the plot let it down. Now that I'm going through it all again, I completely agree and I've already ditched almost 5,000 words of it (I'm about 3/4 of way through revisions). I've learned two lesons from this: I submitted in far too much of a hurry, and some novels need a little more plotting than others. This novel will hopefully be all the stronger for its revisions and will soon be ready to wing its way to another publisher.

Fortunately, I love all the stages of writing and submitting, and don't even mind occasional rejections, as long as I'm still getting acceptances. It's even better when I learn valuable lessons that hopefully strenthen the writing along the way!

In case anyone is interested in writing for children, I'll be starting a new series over on my children's blog, Flights of Imagination, from Monday. Each week, I'm going to feature a children's, tween, or YA author and book. If you write for these age groups and would like your book featured, please let me know.

Rosemary