A hodge-podge day

Time Spent: 5 hours, 15 minutes.

Today was one of those days where I worked on and off all day long, did a lot, yet feel like I got very little accomplished. Maybe it was the day of the neverending list - have you ever felt like you had one of those days?

Anyway, I printed out "Journey" and started working on the fourth draft. This learning to revise stuff is wild. Now that I KNOW (or at least I know more than I did four months ago) how to revise - what to look for - it's kind of driving me nuts. I'm seeing what kinds of bad things I do in my first drafts that I can only imagine that all writers do in their first drafts (makes me REALLY want to see first drafts of every Harry Potter or Sword of Truth!). Many weeks ago I said that revising was hard for me because I edit as I go along. That's the truth. I DO edit as I go along. Now I think revising is hard for me because I see so many things that need to be changed it drives me nuts. I know what to look for now though, so it's so much easier to point to something and see it differently.

I've mentioned before that "Journey" is one of my favorite stories. After I did the last revision, I scrapped the entire ending and changed it so it wasn't so fast. I really like what I did with it, but it made the story about three pages longer than the second draft. When I got done with today's revision, it ended up being a page shorter, but the beginning, which I felt needed some work, ended up a lot stronger. I'm going to let this sit for a few more days, then do one more draft and see if I think it's finally ready to submit. I think it might be ready, but still want to look at it to make sure it's polished.

I also looked through some of my contest listings, and there are quite a few that I think I want to submit to. Better still, there are a couple of lit journals that are seeking submissions, and those don't cost anything to submit (contests are a $5 minimum).