Slow and steady.
I've always been a slow drafter and am extremely jealous of people who can write over 3K words a day. In five weeks' time, I've managed to revise a little over 40K words, so basically only around 1K per day. Most of this has been revising rather than rewriting, which takes longer and requires more thought and tinkering.
But still, that is not very much progress compared to some of the Pitch Wars mentees, some of whom started with a blank doc and have already finished entirely rewriting 100K words. Other mentees have already printed out their manuscripts to line edit, which for me seems eons away. However, comparing myself to others will get me nowhere. My only focus is this manuscript and getting it to sing like I want to.
Yesterday, I sent Kathleen the first half of Act 2, which means I'm halfway through this revision. The good news is that I know Act 1 only needs a little editing, and I feel pretty good about Act 2A -- save for one scene, so I'm fairly confident that once I get to THE END I will only need a couple weeks to polish and shine.
It took me a whole year to finish the first draft of this manuscript and another year for the second draft. Now, in PW I'm accelerating this revision to three months. Of course, I'm going to feel the pressure!
This experience has already taught me some new ways of outlining and allowed me to fix this thing that I'd nearly given up on, but now I'm learning how to accept my revising style and process. I may be a snail, but made it this far!
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