My WIP, the Jigsaw Puzzle

I spent this morning pulling sections of scenes from later on in the story out and piecing them into earlier scenes I had created. As I wrote a new scene this morning, I realized that it was the perfect set up for Kate to trip up and reveal something she shouldn't. Originally I had her doing this nearly halfway through the book, but in writing the new scene it felt more natural to have it happen now, and in the long run made more sense. Unfortunately, that means the old scene that takes place later in the book will have to be reworked because it led into something else, and now it doesn't exist.

That's what this final revision has been like. Picking and piecing, slicing and dicing. Rewriting and reworking. I've never actually done this before. My first two books still sit on the shelf in all their unrevised horror, so going through this process is all new to me. I find I'm learning a lot about what works and what doesn't, shortcuts I can use later and how I should have done things from the beginning. Education by fire, I like to call it.

Progress has been slow, although I feel like I'm making steady inroads into getting this manuscript the way it should be, but it just isn't happening fast enough for my liking. I want to get it finished and out. It feels like I've been chanting that phrase forever now. Hopefully this five day weekend will get me to the midpoint. The first half of the book has more revision than the last half, so hopefully things will start to fall into place and I'll be able to finish this on time.

I've given myself a new target date. I want to be able to give the manuscript to my critique partner at our next chapter meeting on November 6th so she can do the final read through. Hopefully that won't take too long and by the third week in November this baby will be out the door and sitting on the editor's desk at HQN.

Once that's done, I think I'll spend a week getting some query letters out to agents and then I'll start tackling Desire & Brimstone and get those requests out to the editors and agents that requested to see partials from the conference.