Revising :D

Before I start rambling, who is watching the lunar eclipse tonight? I'm in the Eastern time zone, so I'm going to have to stay up really late to see it, but apparently the moon takes on a reddish hue at the full eclipse! I can't see the moon from any of my windows (trees in the way), so I'll be running outside periodically to see what's happening.

I have this new way of revising. What I do is I read each chapter and I change nothing. I write down a short list of what happens. Then I write a (longer) list of things that need to change, or what SHOULD happen. Then, instead of trying to tackle a whole bunch of revision things at once, I can take them one at a time, and go through the chapter as many times as I feel like it without losing my place or getting overwhelmed with all the changes that need to happen.

A creative writing professor once gave my class some really good advice: don't try to change too many things in a revision. For each draft, change ONE major thing. You won't get overwhelmed, but after just a couple drafts you'll start to see some real improvement. This is harder to do in a novel, but I like the system I'm working with now because I can do that with each chapter, and I can see how the changes will interact with each other before I make them (which prevents me from making some huge change that ends up not working).

I like it especially because it leaves me with a chapter-by-chapter outline! Once I get past 15ish chapters, I start doing that thing where I can't remember *exactly* in which chapter teensy-weensy-random-detail happened, and I have to skim like 40 pages to find it.

My friends, this is a very happy thing.

And back by popular demand, here's Lucy!