First Novel, First Revision

After attending a holiday party last weekend and having a lively conversation with a local bookseller, I decided it was time to get back to my 2011 NaNoWriMo novel and start revisions. I am sailing into new waters here. I have never revised a novel before because I have never completed a novel before. I'm excited about the prospect and not feeling an ounce of trepidation.

I spent a few hours last Sunday afternoon taking the first draft and migrating it into my copy of Scrivener.  I can see the benefit of getting a holistic view of the work, having research and thoughts in one place, and being able to jump around easily to work on different sections. I got Scrivener after starting NaNoWriMo last year so I was too unfamiliar with it to use it during November. I am now more familiar with it and I think Scrivener will be a lot of assistance to me in the days to come. I especially like the idea of cutting things but not really getting rid of them in case I change my mind later. Woman's prerogative and all.

I haven't read the first draft since I wrote it a year ago. After finishing it, I told myself I wanted to let some time pass so I could come back to it with fresh eyes. I'm glad I did. As I started piecing the novel into sections for the Scrivener software, I found many delights and surprises in things I had done and forgotten.

I learned something about myself from it too. Despite the fact that I'm an optimist with a good outlook on life, the parts of the novel that have stuck in my mind for a year are pretty much the sections I thought so terrible in the writing of it that I've never let anyone read the first draft. Perhaps I'll explore that someday. For the record, those sections didn't get any better for sitting there a year. They are still awful and will be re-written. I'll also be making changes to some other parts that weren't bad but could be stronger. I've had some relevant live-changing experiences in the past year and my key learnings will probably find their way into my revisions too.

I still have to finish moving the novel into the various chunks I've divided up in Scrivener but that is helping me to see where the weak parts are. So far, revising is a lot of fun. I think I'll do it several times.  :wink: