It’s the Process—Robin

Man, I have so much to do. Polishing my first draft is consuming every moment I have. No time for the “extras” in life like balancing checkbooks or personal grooming. (Luckily it’s winter and my legs and toes are constantly covered!)

I met with my critique group yesterday and they gave me a great pep talk about revising. Cynthia reminded me to go through it many times, looking for only specific things each time.

First, is continuity. Then there’s language then dialogue then more layering then similes and metaphors then symbolism. Oh, and maybe some grammar.

Well, I’ve already gone through the manuscript once making sure it had a beginning then a middle then an end. At the same time I also made sure I used the same name for my main character all the way through. Wow! Not bad, Robin!

Now on to reading it through six more times, then having my critique group edit it, then Jay and Eve, then my agent, then back to me and then…it’ll probably be winter again and my legs will be covered and I’ll have some extra time to finish it up.

So this morning I found I had some extra time (hubby was sick in bed and son was telling Dora on TV which log to step on so she won’t fall in a snake pit). And what did I do? I wrote out a summary of my next novel! A middle grade humorous historical science fiction epic! (For real.)

Okay, fine. Back to revising. But before I do all the layering and similes and stuff, I gotta go through my manuscript and make sure I take out all of these…NOTE TO SELF: MAKE THIS PART BETTER.

--Robin
(who is wearing long pants and boots out of necessity)