The last few days have been pretty good revision days for the most part. I’ve made about 50o0 words progress on this retreat so far, and should have at least two more days in a row to work.
Working on the Surreality final draft means I sometimes run across large swaths of the draft that are largely fine. A sentence here or there needs tweaking, add or subtract a paragraph as needed, but otherwise use most of the existing text.
Some people would cut or paste this text, and in the past I have, but for some reason this draft I decided to retype every word of what will be my 80,000 word story. Some of this is as a method to force me to see every word, and part of it is as a momentum builder so that when I get to tougher sections I can feel like I’ve been making steady progress.
Of course this introduces the possibility for new mistakes, but that’s what my diligent and beautiful editor is for. I’m not sure I’d recommend this for every stage of a novel’s development, but for a book that I’ve had to put down sometimes, and am really now in the last six months making a real push to finish, this retyping has been really working for me.
What new things have you tried to kick start writing your second draft, or your first?
[BTW] : Ben Trube, Writer 