I’m just starting the third draft of my first novel, “Not by Sword,” and boy is it taking longer than I expected!

I remember the optimism of midsummer, thinking that I would have my second draft done before starting school in September, then my beta readers would finish it by the end of that month, I would make some small changes, do a pass for grammar, and publish the thing by the end of November. Wrong! Before that, I remember finishing my first draft and thinking most of the hard work was done. Even wronger!

There’s also the imposter syndrome. Sure, I’ve spent a lot of my life writing, but I’ve never really edited before. What if I’m making the manuscript worse as I go? What if the story needs a major overhaul but I’ll never know that because I can’t afford to shell out thousands of dollars for a developmental edit? What if my characters are all two-dimensional and I don’t have the skill to breathe life into them?

On the topic of characters, I have at least a little reassurance. I have tried making the character sheets and planning out their arcs and personalities in advance, and then never worked well for me. I’ve also heard people say that their characters come to life as they write, but I still felt super self-conscious about them after my first draft. Maybe it’s just for me, but I found that they really came to life during my second draft. Rereading and rewriting scenes clarified their personalities, goals, and relationships for me, and now they really do feel like friends rather than strangers.

And then there’s the process of putting the book on Amazon, forming a launch team (should I do a Kickstarter?), and marketing. There is no way I was ever going to publish this book this year, but at least now I know why!

So here’s the new plan:

1. Scene-level edit. I’ve already done one big-picture edit and gotten feedback from a couple alpha readers (thanks Scott and Hannah!). I’ve got several pages of notes regarding things to change, particularly with regard to character and relationships. A few plot and worldbuilding things. Some pacing issues. Not by Sword has 32 chapters, so if I edit one a day, I’ll be done right around the time school starts.

2. Line edits. With the scenes and pacing smoothed out, I’ll go back through and make sure the prose is nice and tight, checking for grammar errors and continuity issues. No idea how long this will take because I’ve never done it before! And I’ll be in school again, so it will probably take a while.

3. Work on something else. I just listened to a podcast from Thomas Umstattd about how Brandon Sanderson rotates his phases of writing like farmers rotate their crops. While beta readers are reviewing Not by Sword I’ll get to do some real writing again! My plan is to work on the third novel in this series for a few months, but maybe I’ll put that on hold and write a few short stories instead. We’ll see how I feel in February or April or whenever we get here. 🤷‍♂️

4. Final proofread. I’ll do one more pass through the manuscript looking for mistakes. Maybe backwards. Seems like I read somewhere that you should proofread your manuscript back to front so that you don’t get caught up in the story and miss things.

5. Format for publication. I’m going to stick with Amazon this time around, since I’m told it’s easy and it’s where most authors make most of their money.

So, that’s where I’m at! Thanks for following along on my indie publishing journey; I’ll let you know when I get this revision done!