Editing

To the NaNoReMo Crowd, from a NaNoWriMo Veteran

Posted by Lora Maroney on November 4, 2011
Posted in: Editing, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

For those who don’t know,  the NaNoReMo to which I’m referring is the smug elitist’s answer to NaNoWriMo (the write a novel in a month challenge). Some people use NaNoReMo to mean “National Novel Reading Month” — those people are fine. However, others use it to mean “National Novel Rejection Month” — aka, the month where agents and publishers the world over reject all the terrible NaNoWriMo novels submitted to them in December.

Look, I get that NaNoWriMo is scary. I get that people don’t want writing to be an accessible thing, that, as Syndrome says, if everyone is super, then no one will be. I get that writers are proud of how difficult writing is. I get that the idea of writing feverishly for one month and then not continuing for the rest of the year offends some true artistes. I get the idea that someone else coming into your playhouse for a month and thinking they own it can be upsetting. I get it. I also get that it’s fun to take people down a peg, to find someone genuinely excited about something and to walk up and tell them it’s pointless.

Every year, this snarky hashtag (or some variant) rears its ugly head, and I am asking — beseeching — people to stop it. NaNoWriMo writers do not submit their novels to publishers as soon as December hits. The official NaNoWriMo site in fact asks people not to. March is NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month) for a reason. Novelists are encouraged to take a break for December, then come back and look at their manuscript with fresh eyes. The forums have an editing section, with resources, suggestions, and a place for people to find beta readers for their work. Every year, thousands of people use these features.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo since 2004, and am an avid forum-goer as well. Not once in the thousands of discussions of post-November plans have I seen someone submit their novel to a publisher right away. People aren’t stupid. People who have finished novels through a program designed to get them over their fear and hesitation, and to turn off the inner editor, they know they’re not holding publishable material. But they at least have something. Something they did not have on October 31st.

Some people put their novels away and never look at them again. THAT’S OKAY.

Some people send them out to crit groups and edit feverishly, then give up and never submit it anywhere. THAT’S OKAY.

Some people edit, work, submit, and end up getting their NaNoWriMo novel published and optioned for a film with Robert Pattinson, raising the hopes of everyone participating in NaNoWriMo who hopes to get published someday. THAT’S OKAY.

Some people finish the first draft, send it out immediately, and get a form rejection. THAT’S OKAY.

Some people complain that NaNoWriMo novelists plunk their books into Createspace on Amazon and think they’ve been “published’. THAT’S OKAY TOO.

The slush pile does not see a quantifiable increase during December because of NaNoWriMo — and even if it did, what does it matter? People write terrible novels and submit them every day. People who crafted for years, who painstakingly edit every single word, write terrible novels every day. Slush pile agents are who they are for a reason; they’re tough. They can survive.

The proper way to handle this fear of an influx of terrible first drafts is to remind people about the importance of editing. This is advice useful to everyone, no matter how insignificant or how important. A first-time NaNoWriMo novelist needs this just as much as J.K. Rowling did when she wrote that epilogue.

Acting like elitist crab apples and coming over to someone’s house just to urinate in their swimming pool helps no one. It discourages honest, creativity-loving people from continuing something that is designed to help them bypass their formidable inner critic. How does making snarky remarks about NaNoReMo solve anything? Does it make you a literary warrior, as some people seem to think? No. It’s the worst form of intellectual bullying, and it needs to stop.

The world of writing should be a place of community, not an excuse to tear other people down. So before chuckling and hitting  ‘retweet’ on those NaNoReMo missives, try taking a walk or playing with a puppy instead. Most NaNoWriMo novelists will never be published — who cares? Let them do what we all have in common: write, and love to do it.

This is the Edit That Never Ends (Photo Post)

Posted by Lora Maroney on October 3, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Main Menu, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

I believe at some point I wrote a self-confident blog post about giving myself until June to finish the edit of my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel, but predicting I wouldn't need past April. Well, to quote Dylan Moran as Bernard Black: "Don't make me laugh — bitterly!"

To be fair, months went by when I didn't edit anything, during which I wallowed in despair over not knowing how to fix a few major hitches in the plot. At some point I wailed on Twitter that Past Me had bestowed too much confidence on Future Me when it came to untangling a particular problem. When you're zipping along, doing line edits and making a few changes, occasionally chopping out unnecessary scenes, it's a bit of a roadblock to come up against a whole chapter or two — let alone an entire arc — that needs a ground-up rewrite before it's possible to move on.

I'm slowly, slowly chipping my way through it; I think (knock on wood) I've worked out the plot kinks to my satisfaction, and fixed a huge hole that would've cropped up later on, so I can start editing. Of course, now it's almost time for NaNoWriMo 2011, but that's a different story.

To apologize for my absence (and to procrastinate a little), let's have some pictures of how I edit novels!

First, this is not how I edit short stories. With short stories, I print them out, then type up a new copy, bypassing the hard-copy edit stage. Novels, on the other hand, require something a bit more robust. I don't write terrible first drafts because my OCD won't allow it, but I do want the final version to be even better, so when I edit, I'm looking for plot, continuity, character, and whatever else on top of the usual grammar and typos.

My editing is two-fold: I write directly on a print-out of the draft, and I make notes in a separate notebook so I can flick through and look for changes later; after this, I look at my notes and type up the next version in Scrivener. This is so I can keep track; when I'm going through the next draft, I can make sure that the note on page 80 to insert a scene with the antagonist's partner actually happens. I also find that having physical evidence works better to motivate me.

My Writing Tools:

  • 1 hard-copy of the draft in a sturdy binder
  • cheap lined notebook for edit notes
  • Moleskine for brainstorming
  • multicoloured pens
  • 5 colours of post-its
    • pink: line edits
    • blue: continuity
    • green: plot
    • yellow: characterisation/dialogue
    • orange: major revisions
  • 5 highlighters (to match the post-its)

 

Hard Copy Editing:

I read through the draft and make changes as I go. Small changes — tightening, weak phrasing, grammar, typos, dialogue, description details, etc. — go right on the page. Larger changes get marked, with a note to fix them on the computer later.

Sometimes the changes are small:

Sometimes they're not so small:

And sometimes I mark entire pages, scenes, or chapters for rewrite on the computer:

 

Notebook — Chapter Overview:

At the beginning of each chapter, I make notes about general what I need to do in it. This helps me keep track later, when I want to make sure I've implemented all the changes I need to.

 

Notebook — Individual Pages:

Once I make a change on the hard-copy, I add a post-it to the notebook, to remind myself of what I just did. I do this for every single page in the entire draft. If no changes get made (note: this has never happened) I would still make an entry for that page, noting this.

What it looks like when changes are light:

What it looks like when changes are a bit more substantial:

 

The Brainstorming Notebook:

This is for when things go terribly wrong. An entire chapter needs rewriting; I find a plot hole that makes the entire third act make no sense; I have no idea what a character looks like at the end of a draft. Here's where I scribble notes to myself and don't show anyone else, because I whine a lot.

 

Progress:

This is the main reason why I prefer the hard-copy method — it looks impressive! Sure, I could pull up both versions of the document in Scrivener, but it doesn't have the same kind of visual punch. When I'm trying to justify ths time spent to other people — and as a writer, this happens a lot — it helps to have a big ol' binder chock-full of colourful notes to "prove" I've been working hard.

 

And there you have it! How do you edit?

Writing: The Editing Slog Zone

Posted by Lora Maroney on February 25, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Writing. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

As the title suggests, I'm slogging through the first-pass revision of my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel. Sometimes the process is fun and exhilarating; sometimes I put my head down and have to stop for the day.  Fortunately I've never reached the point where I think everything is terrible and should be shot shot shot and set on fire (thank you, Saw: The Musical), but I have definitely reached my limit for the day.  Sort of how sometimes all I want is cheese, but other days I can't even stomach the stuff.

Sometimes the editing goes well.  I'm 128 pages in to the novel at this point, and not one of them is free of red ink.  I'm perversely proud of this.  It means not one page hasn't been improved.  Some pages only have a few changes; others look like I drank too much cranberry juice and tossed it up all over my manuscript.  Either way, in these moments I'm enjoying the prose I've written and changing things to make it stronger.  The worst that happens in these moments is I get exhausted looking at how many times I use variants of the verb "to be".

Sometimes, not so much.

I rounded the 40% complete mark the other day, after wrangling a particularly difficult chapter into submission.  I'd discovered a huge plot hole, filled with so many inconsistencies that if it hadn't been NaNoWriMo I would've wondered what I was thinking when I wrote it.  Those three a.m. "must make word count before sleep" sprints take their toll.  For those who might wonder, I managed to confuse whether my pirate ring or my planetary agency had sent the warning message to my protagonists, and by the end everything was a horrible mashup of "they" and "we" and "you" without any clue to whom the pronouns belonged.  But after some despair — heightened at the time by a long workday and the fact that I was in an otherwise packed Starbucks with two empty seats on either side of me, because some small-city Japanese people will rather stand than sit next to a foreigner, which usually I barely notice but that day resonated in every part of my conscious mind — I got some Indian takeout, burned my mouth on the curry, and dove back in.

Once I clear Chapter Seven I'll have passed 50%, and it's around this time that I start thinking about other projects — stalled WIPs, ground-up rewrites, shiny new ideas — and wondering if I might be better off just playing with them for a few days, just in case.  Especially because I know of a huge plot mess I left for myself back in November that's just waiting for me when I hit Chapter Ten.  I don't know how to fix it at the moment, and I know it will involve a lot of tears, and perhaps the kind of scene-deleting pen-slashing that scores the pages underneath.  I really don't want to think about it.  Those other ideas are looking pretty good right now, especially since I have other people invested in them, whereas this one is pretty much just me at the moment.

But I'm not letting myself do it.  The sense of accomplishment I got from finishing the first draft was incredible; I can't wait for the encore, when I finish revising and can stop only seeing the errors.  I just need to listen to the theme from "Rocky" nonstop for the next few weeks, I guess.  If you're in the same position, I urge you to wait.  Those shiny ideas will still be there when you're done.  Jot down a sentence summary to jog your mind in your ideas notebook (assuming you have one) and move on.

Wish me luck!  And for those of you doing editing of your own, good luck as well.

 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Cliches: Scrivener in Action

Posted by Lora Maroney on February 15, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Writing, Writing Software. Tagged: , , , , , . 18 comments

I love Scrivener for new projects; nothing helps me outline, keep track of things, and have my entire manuscript in one, easy to reference place like Literature & Latte’s brainchild.  Unfortunately, it’s a little intimidating if you don’t know how to use it, so I decided to show a few of my Scrivener projects to give people a visual idea.

The Sidebar

I start here because it’s one of the most important visual cues in Scrivener. It lets me navigate anywhere, without struggling to find where I need to be.

Sidebar 1 - Outline   This is an example of a story outline.  Each section is collapsible if need be.  I have my story divided into parts, chapters, and scenes; each folder is a part or chapter, and each individual page is a scene.  I’ve labeled each scene with a basic overview of what happens, so I can know at a glance where I need to be.

The colours of each scene or chapter indicate (in this particular document) the Point of View of each scene.  You can edit this to be anything you want, of course, but for me, it helps see which characters I haven’t dealt with in a while.

 

 

Sidebar 2 - Other Features The sidebar also has other features.  I’ve added a “Notes to Self” section (self-explanatory) and the “Graveyard” (for scenes I don’t think I’m going to use anymore but don’t want to delete just yet).  Scrivener also comes equipped with character and setting templates, and a section for research (more details on that later).

 

 

 

 

Sidebar 3 - Research Here’s an example of the “Research” sidebar fully expanded. I’ve organized them into different categories (isn’t science fiction fun?).  This gives me a good overview without having to click on anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 Planning

This is, possibly, one of the strongest stages for Scrivener.  Group mode, which resembles a corkboard, lets you put one scene or event per index card, and shuffle them around manually as suits your plot.  If the order of events changes, all you have to do is drag the card to its new spot.  Here are some examples:

Planning - Corkboard Mode
In this example (yes, it’s an extensive lawyer procedural for Gordon Korman fanfiction; don’t judge me!), I use corkboard mode to figure out which scenes go where. I’ve dragged them around several times.  At a glance, I can see what goes where, and which scenes I need to work out in more detail.

Planning - Outline Mode
Here’s the same information in Outline Mode. Outline Mode offers a bit more detail for each (you can see what the colours represent — in my case, Point of View, which is entirely customizable), but less at-a-glance.

Planning - Corkboard Mode II
Here’s a different story in Group Mode; this time, instead of ‘planning’, ‘researching’, etc., I’ve set dates.  I’m tracking a character’s backstory, so I want to know what happens when.  Again, I can immediately see what I know lots about, and which events are vague.

Planning - Outline Mode II
Same story, outline mode. In this case, with such a long time frame, outline mode is more efficient.

Research

Do you like to research obsessively? Do you keep tabs or bookmarks in your browser that you wish you didn’t have to keep flipping over to?  Scrivener allows you to import websites or other documents (PDFs, docs, etc.) directly into your workspace!

Resarch - Saved WebPages
This is a direct import of a webpage.  Everything appears as it would in my browser.  (Note: if the page has ads, so will your import. That’s the only downside.)

Research - PDF Import
This is a direct import of a PDF file I downloaded. Afterward, I could safely delete the original PDF.

Research - Text Import
Of course, PDFs and webpages can’t be edited, so you can also copy-paste the information into a new research file.  Formatting is preserved.

The Writing Itself

And of course, the meat.  What I love about Scrivener (and what I didn’t realize when I first started using it) is that it’s not just for planning; you can keep your whole document there.

Section Overview - Outline Mode
Outline Mode gives an excellent overview of the story.  Titles, POV, word count, synopses, it’s all there!

Chapter Overview - Corkboard Mode
Just like in the planning stage, I can also look at each scene in a chapter on the corkboard, with its synopsis.  If for some reason I decide I want scene X to occur after scene Y, I just move the index cards — and the scenes will be rearranged in the overall text document. No messy copy-and-pasting.

Scene - View Mode
And here is an actual scene!  At a glance I have the actual text, the synopsis on the right, and any meta-data I entered, like whose POV it is (or, in the other document, on what date this occurs).

It’s of note that while each scene or chapter is its own section, you can also use “Full View” to see the entire thing, unbroken, just like in Microsoft Word or your software of choice.

Extra Features:

Because Scrivener is customizable, I’ve added a “notes” section, which gives me a good, at-a-glance look at what I need to look out for as I’m writing.

Notes - Corkboard View
Because these don’t need to be in any particular order, I’ve used “freestyle mode” for this one.

Final Notes:

Basically, Scrivener is what you make of it.  There are other features, like keywords, that I haven’t used yet, but plan to — you can tag scenes with characters, plot elements, themes, whatever you like, so you can quick-reference them later.  You can have scenes tagged with POV, dates, thematic elements, or anything — it’s all customizable.   You can add comments or highlights during revisions, or mark scenes as “first revision”, “second draft”, “final”, etc.

And in the end, you can export the file — with or without your notes — into whatever format you desire.

I love Scrivener. Once you decide what you want to do with it, the software works for you, not the other way around.  I use it differently for each project I have, and it’s fantastic.  If you’re convinced, go here and get it: http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php  If you’re not convinced, go anyway and look at their testimonials.  Watch the tutorial video.  Give it a shot!

Most importantly, happy writing!

***EDIT***

See Part II for some of the inner workings when you’re actually writing!

Photo of the Day: Editing Process

Posted by Lora Maroney on January 21, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Photo of the Day, Writing. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

Just for fun, today I thought I'd share what my manuscripts look like after I start the revision process.  I'm only on chapter 2 (out of 13, plus epilogue), and this is the reason why.  I don't re-draft, so this step makes up the majority of my editing.

IMG_2002

Writing: Starting the Revisions

Posted by Lora Maroney on January 13, 2011
Posted in: Editing, Writing. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

The new year (a major thing here in Japan) and the start of the final academic trimester means I haven't had as much time for creative endeavours as I'd like.  If I'm not attempting to coax my unheated apartment to a temperature higher than the inside of my refrigerator (not exaggerating!), I've been working on lesson plans and semester overviews and the usual mid-year performance reviews.  I've kept myself sane by working on creative things in my head (I'm almost never not thinking about characters, plots, etc.), but that doesn't translate well to visible content.

I have, however, begun editing this year's NaNoWriMo novel during my down-time.  Armed with a hard copy of the novel, a multicoloured pen (red for small on-page edits, blue for continuity, green for larger notes-to-self on changes that can't be fit into the margins) and five colours of highlighter and sticky notes (pink: changes, blue: continuity, green: plot, yellow: character/dialogue, orange: major changes), I'm diving in to the glorious world of revision.

IMG_2001

Confession: I actually like editing. I love wrangling struggling prose into something workable, finding continuity errors and fixing them, slashing my pen through weak scenes.  It's like playing "Where's Waldo" or those "I, Spy" books, except instead of tiny men in striped shirts or sixteen trumpets, I'm rooting out all the things  currently dragging my book down.  Instead of despairing whenever I come across something that needs fixing, I'm just glad I (or one of my betas) found it.

It helps that I have a system, which speaks directly to my rather compulsive mindset.  In a separate notebook, I note the changes made on each page of the document (in the appropriate colour, with the appropriate sticky), so I can quickly skim through and cross-reference my edits. ("Page 18: cut redundant explanation of Cris' botany project, as per continuity note on page 3")  I probably look absolutely insane, but it's good to have a reference, and filling the pages with visible changes also gives me a visual barometer of my progress, which is much more satisfying than a word document.

This is a slow process.  I check each page for continuity errors, character motivation, dialogue problems, world-building, and places that need expansion, and each sentence to make sure my prose is tight and as free of weak words as possible.  Here is my Editing Hit List:

  • "Was"
    • 90% of the time I find the word "was", I reword the sentence to get rid of it.  I hate weak phrasing, and copious "was" sentences make for mushy prose.  I replace them with action or description instead.
  • Adverbs
    • I don't have an all-out vendetta against adverbs; I believe they can be used well, but it's often just as effective to cut them and add description instead.  Sometimes I reword, but often I just cut redundant ones that somehow crept in — J.K. Rowling's "Harry shouted angrily" comes to mind.
  • Generic Dialogue
    • My characters' dialogue should sound like it belongs to them. If the scene is expositional or plot-forwarding, sometimes I slip into "author-voice". These get reworded immediately.
  • Generic Voice
    • None of my characters' narration should sound like a newscaster. If they're twelve, their narration shouldn't sound like an adult. I don't go overboard with the quirkiness, but I do try to keep them individual. Why have four narrators if they don't bring something new?

These are the immediate edits I make right there on the page. I do my best to tighten my prose (without going overboard; my writing style is not minimalist) and make sure I'm not just telling the reader what they're "supposed" to see.

After I've gone over the technical details, then I move on to the bigger picture:

  • Convenience
    • I'm very guilty of this.  The plot demands that Character A have a certain skill in order to move onward (accuracy with firearms, for example); eager to move on, I write in a quick justification and go on my way.  Except that by the end of the story, Character A just so happens to have 5 or 6 of these little skills that end up directly relevant to the plot.  Since I don't like my characters to be the human equivalent of Q's Bond Gadget Stash, I have to backtrack and figure out which of these little skills to integrate, remove, or work around.
  • Continuity
    • Sometimes it's as minor as a physical description that changes without explanation, or a character's name that I forgot and subsequently changed (in this draft, one of the characters is either a polygamist or I didn't remember I'd already named his wife).  Sometimes it's little things like repeating a metaphor I particularly enjoyed, or doubling up on exposition.  Other times it's larger plot elements that directly conflict.  The thing with NaNoWriMo is that it doesn't leave much time for reflection and in-process continuity checks, so I tend to find a lot of these.
  • Dropped Threads
    • During NaNoWriMo I often introduce a concept, character, or plot idea only to abandon it almost immediately.  Sometimes I forgot that it existed; sometimes it wasn't that important to begin with; sometimes I genuinely thought I'd followed up on it, only to find out it's all in my head.  Either way, at this point I make a note and decide whether to work it in through the rest of the story or get rid of it.
  • Character
    • Are the character's motivations clear?  Does it make sense what she's doing?  Does it directly contradict something he said earlier?  Has the character changed from the beginning of the story to the end, and if so, is it clear this is character growth and not just sloppy, inconsistent writing?  Also, if the narrator is unreliable, here's where I need to make it clear.  If Character A believes his actions are impeccable without any moral quibbles, I need the reader to understand that this is his belief, not the story's.  I don't want the readers thinking I think Character B is a saint when he's really an opportunistic sociopath just because he does.
  • Pacing
    • How's the speed of the scene?  Does it leave the reader wondering what the heck just happened?  Or does it crawl, getting stuck on minor details or description or wandering because I didn't know what happened next and hoped that just writing would lead me there? (This happens more often than I'd like.  I always figure it out, but then I have a lot of middle bits to cut.)

For each scene and subsequent chapter, I check to make sure that it …

  • forwards the plot
  • doesn't derail on a tangent unrelated to the rest of the story
  • isn't redundant 
  • wasn't written because it was 3a.m., it was NaNoWriMo, and I realized if I just expanded on a particular tangent then I would reach 1,700 words and I could finally go to bed
  • makes sense (see above)

During this whole process, I don't go back to my digital document to make any changes.  It's too soon to tell if I'll introduce new contradictions and continuity errors, or if something I'm noting now gets explained later, etc.  Only when I've finished the entire hard-copy draft do I get to go back to my computer and start changing things.  After that, I read it over again to catch any typos or sneaky weak words that infiltrated the rewrite, ship it off to my betas to make sure I didn't miss anything, and I'm done! 

It's a crazy, lengthy process that eventually starts eating my brain and destroying my soul a little bit, but it's insanely rewarding at the same time. And since I refuse to let myself edit the text document piecemeal, I don't get stuck in "editor's hell".

I haven't finished a novel in a long time so it's been a while since I've gone through this process. I'm looking forward to it, and enjoying the 18 or so pages I've done so far.  If, in a month, I start to lose my mind, please remind me that I said this. ;)

Writing: Editing – The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

Posted by Lora Maroney on January 3, 2011
Posted in: Critique, Editing, Writing. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

I enjoy Sir Ian McKellen's Gandalf, and that quote quite aptly sums up my feelings about the days before diving in to the revision process.

It's the beginning of 2011, which means my one-month cooling-off period after finishing my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel has finished, and I'm officially allowed to look at it again.  I spent the last month torturing myself by wanting to open it and just tweak that or fix this, based on feedback from my reviewers or my own thoughts, but I held back.

Now I've passed my self-imposed wait date, but I'm hanging back for a few days until I hear back from some of my first-draft reviewers.  One of them gave me updates as he went, but the others are going to send me lump feedback once they finish.  Once I get them back, I'll go through them, see if any of them agreed upon a particular problem, and weigh the rest: immediately agree, waffle, or immediately disagree.  If it's the second, I'll let it sit, but if it's the third, then it's time to think about why I'm knee-jerking so badly.  Is it because they've managed to offend me?  ("Your main character sucks!")  Is it because they've missed the point? (I had someone in a critique group convinced that my spaceship was a metaphor for the womb, and read the entire story through that lens.  Those edits weren't very helpful, to say the least.)  After I've looked at why, the I'll decide whether to listen.

I've talked before about too many cooks spoiling the broth (or, in Japanese, too many ship captains driving the boat into the mountains), and I don't plan on taking every suggestion.  But I still want to see them, to find the ones that I've missed, because I forget that the story in my head isn't necessarily the one that makes it onto paper.  Sometimes I forget to put in a vital plot point because I know about it, so it slips my mind to write it down, and that's the hardest one to pin down for myself because I'll be convinced I must have written it somewhere.

At the moment, I'm chewing my nails waiting for them to get back to me, half in anticipation and half in terror and agony.  There are things I know I did horribly — one or two much too convenient skills for my characters to have, rationalized awfully because it was three a.m., and it was NaNoWriMo, and I'd fix it later, for example.  There's a giant character and plot resolution that I forgot to mention.  But I know there are going to be ones I had no idea I'd done, character motivations that don't mesh, world-building that isn't clear, and goodness knows what else.

I plan on having this baby edited and ready to go by June, and actually expect it will be done sooner.  I don't plan on writing a full third, tenth, or seventeenth draft.  This offends some people, who think you need to slave over a novel for a decade in order to have any sort of writer cred.  If that's what works for you — and you produce finished, salable novels — then fine, but for most people I think that's silly, and what's more, that's a good way to ensure you will never, ever finish your novel.  Your writing style will change, so the longer you take on revision, the more unrecognizable the discrete parts of your book will be.  As Holly Lisle said, this will not be the best book you've ever written; it just needs to be the best you can write right now.

I'm terrified and exhilarated, and I can't wait.