The Longest and Final Step of my Second Draft To-Do

The final step of my to-do is the longest.

After careful evaluation, I've paired my twelve-step to-do down to eleven steps. I have a new and shiny editing checklist, and I'm going through each chapter with it. Some chapters need more work than others. It's fascinating to see how far my writing has progressed since I started. The first chapter reads as if someone entirely different wrote it. In a sense, that's true. I've put in well over 1,000 hours, so the difference between zero and 1000+ hours on a story is stunning.

What's next?

I'm organizing my thoughts on my next set of revisions. I already have a solid list, and I'm just adding to it based on the recommendations I've pulled from Intuitive Editing. After organizing, I'll just get to it—in precisely the same way I did with the first draft. Just set a time block and go at it.

What's new since last week?

• Finished organizing my checklist for revisions. It is two pages of things to look for in my own writing to improve it.
• I'm cooking up a few fun things for my website. One of those is a retelling of an immersive story I created several years ago for a friend.
• I also sent off a couple short stories to professional editors, and the feedback was very positive. They had some great suggestions, and the line edits were helpful (their notes fed into my checklist for my novel's second draft.) For anyone thinking of writing, or anyone who has written: get your stuff out there, somewhere, anywhere. You may eventually regret keeping it to yourself.

‍