Edits Round One of Project Teal

Dear humbled reader,

On April 22, 2019 at 10:02 pm at night at 152,560 words I finished round one of the edits for my first book! That’s crazy.

It’s been 8 months since I finished my first draft of the project and it feels so good to be progressing towards accomplishing a dream that has been a dream for my whole life, but is now a possible attainable goal. And when editing my first draft of my book, it hit me how a lot of the times we say we want to accomplish our dreams. We say we dream of being a doctor or a singer or an actor or a princess and all are valid and great dreams, but they are only dreams if we sit on our butts daydreaming about them without every actually chasing them. When you start to take action for your dreams, do they then become a goal and a reality that makes it closer for you to achieve them. Because no way is your dream going to fall into your lap without hard work and effort, because if that was the case, many of us would just sit around all day wondering when the day that dream will fall into our lap. And so much with life requires action in doing things to accomplish what you want.

A dream is only a dream until you make it real.

This last year, I’ve been making this dream of writing a book a goal. And to me that means more than I could ever ask for. I’ve always said I wanted to write book—–my dream was to write a book. And now I’ve done that, I realized I have a bigger and a fairly new dream: to be a published author. I’ve gotten through the first hurdle of writing a book and now I have to make the book the best quality that I can, but the next tremendous hurdle is to find a way to share my voice with the world and this story that I’ve been working on.

By no means necessary I’m a FANTASTIC writer like Cassandra Clare, Colleen Hoover, Sara Dessen, or JK Rowling. No way. I can’t even compare myself to them when they are on another level from me. But it’s not fair to myself to compare my writing to theirs when they are much wiser and experienced and have a different voice than me. I can only be the best writer I can be and hope to aspire to write as good as them one day.

And I do hope for that.

I feel more confident with this second draft/first edited version because the plot just seems tighter, but I know that when I was writing it a lot of the main message and points that I feel like I wanted to get across with this book got lost in some of the more dramatic side stories. I know that going into my second edits/third draft, I want to focus more on making the plot center around what I originally wanted rather than all the other things that happen because I realized my book isn’t about the side stories and dramas, but about this one overarching idea. But right now, it isn’t that clear, so that’s one thing I want to fix.

I also want to go into this second edit/third draft focusing on the relationships of the book. In my first draft, I feel like I had stronger friendship moments with my characters and the family, but with this draft, I think that got lost as well because I wanted to add more dynamics. But again, I got lost in the dynamics and not the point of the story. And the relationships in terms of the story are important, so I really want to go back to the essence of the first draft.

But that’s not to say there aren’t things I liked about the second draft/first edit. I liked how I included more of the main ideas of the book and expanded on it. This all probably sounds highly vague to you because you don’t know what I’m talking about, but maybe one day you will ; ) I would love to share more details, of course I would, with you, but I want to wait when the time is right to be more open about the plot of the book to surprise you. So sorry. But I also liked the different scenes I added to this book that made it more nostalgic and meaningful rather than one note.

The biggest thing was this draft was the tremendous jump in word count. Don’t worry I cringed for me too! I know edits are supposed to reduce word count 😂 obviously that didn’t happen, but I know with the next edit, I want to be more concise, so there are a lot of things that might get cut out and will reduce the word count. Then again the word count could increase because I have this other idea for the chapter sections that I think might flow well . . . but I’m not sure. Do you like chapter titles?

The main reason for the big increase in word count was because I added a lot more dialogue and different scenes as mentioned before, but I don’t know if I’ll keep them all, but most of them might just get altered to fit the plot, but we’ll see.

So what’s next for my writing journey?

Well, I think I need to take a good break from a week and collect thoughts and ideas and then come back refreshed and ready to write.

Then I have to read my second draft/first edits fully through.

Here’s the thing . . .

I never fully read my original draft through before I went into my first edits.

I know, I know, it sounds wrong.

Is it wrong?

I feel like it’s wrong.

But I also just kind of new where I wanted to edit things after writing that first draft so that’s why I didn’t want to read it fully through. I also didn’t want to cringe the whole time and boy did I cringe when I read some of my original draft. I did incorporate the majority of the second draft/first edit with some of the original things I wrote, so what I originally wrote wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good 😅

But I’ll work on it and make it better.

So I’m kind of nervous, but excited to fully read what I wrote and to make notes of all the things that I want to change or keep or strengthen. And I think this time around the edits will take less than more than half a year to do because it’s summer soon so I can spend more time with my writing, which I’m sooooooooo happy for. Do you have any tips for me to edit my book? How do you edit your writing?

Once I’m done reading and taking notes of things, I think I also want to make a comprehensive outline to know exactly what I want to do going forward, so not to get lost in other things. I had an outline going into this book, but I’m the type of person who doesn’t stick to the outline, or barely uses it because I like to write whatever feels right in the moment. But I think I already did that with these drafts, so now I just need to take those moments, make them better and know exactly if they’re need or not to make the plot strong.

And I’m just genuinely excited to see where an outline takes me and to make my book better.

I know there are probably books like the one I’m writing out there—–I know there are—–but I hope that mine has a different story to tell but a good message. It’s not a life changing book like The Fault in Our Stars, but I just hope that it’ll be a book that people can relate to and feel something from.

I hope one day I’m able to have this project published and that someone out there will believe in my vision and my words to see it published. I hope any one of you that are writing a story or chasing after a goal, I hope that you have supportive people in your life who will be there to cheer you on and believe in you through every step of the way.

I’m cheering for you!

I know chasing after a goal can be strenuous, it can be daunting, it can be dejecting, but I hope you keep towards chasing after your good intentioned goal knowing that good things take time, effort, and work, and as long as you never give up——cliché I know——-you will accomplish your goal. I know you will. Sometimes it’s just getting past that first hurdle and looking back to see how far you’ve come. Maybe there’s another hurdle in front of you that you have to overcome, but know this: you’ve already got past the first one, and the next one is just another obstacle in your way to success. And you can overcome that one just as well.

So here’s to you dreamers who are making strides and jumping towards your goals.

Here’s to you on your journey.

I hope you find yourself well on your way,

And as always, with love,