Cutting The Fat

Song Of The Day: It Ain't Easy By Tupac

My mother has a saying. She says that you have to peel back layers to get to the bone. What this means is cutting through everything extra to get to what you want. I am finding out that this is so true when it comes to editing a manuscript. I have a serious problem with word count. I am the 100,000+ queen. I think that I am physically incapable of writing a book below that number. But I have to because the word count guidelines for YA have narrowed a bit. For the past two days,I have done something contrary to my writing style. I am trimming like mad. I am removing adverbs left and right. I took out entire chapters and then blended them in elsewhere. I am chopping and screwing this book to death,lol. I will die clutching this MS in my cold hands as I try to get it down to 100,000 or less words. Sigh.

Writing is easy. If time and life cooperate,I can knock a novel out in six weeks. But editing and revising is real work. It is when you spend so much time with your book that you actually get tired of it. But it is necessary. My old nemesis,the query,is easier! Still,the dreaded E&R has its pleasures. I am finding out new ways to write and discovering that chapters sometimes need to go. Also,they might just fit somewhere else in the MS. Now I am at 108,433. I have more to remove and I'll probably rewrite parts of the book.

So,I'll turn on my Pac,pull out my red pen,and trim some more. The goal is a book that bedazzles whoever reads it. A book that looks like my Nana in her Sunday best aka dressed down,ready for praise,and bringing glory.