National Novel Writing Month, part two

So . . . last time I talked about the road up to and through my first  NaNoWriMo experience. But, succeeding in compiling 50,000 random words isn't really the end. It really shouldn't be. NaNoWriMo has some good things and bad things about it. One good thing is that it gets people off their butts and working on something. The very first step of writing a book is writing the first draft. Moving on to the second step is impossible until that first step is taken.

A bad thing is that, from what  I've heard, there are too many people that think the very first step is the only step needed. That once they've put  their magnificent words down on paper that they are done and dropping it off at the publishing house will lead them to be the next Rowling or Meyer. The first draft written in the month of November is just that, a first draft. It needs massive updates, corrections, clarifications, and edits. The only people I could see being done with NaNoWriMo once they hit the 50k goal arethose who wanted to solely see if they could acheive that goal.

As for myself, I considered that. I thought maybe I could just set it aside and say, "That's one  more thing off my bucket list." ('cept for not having written a bucket list . . . ). But I wanted  to see how far I could take it. I knew it  would need edits, and I knew that through the website there was a reward of a free draft of the book for those that had met the goal. I told myself that my new goal was to get the manuscript to reasonably edited standpoint by the cut off for the free draft. The dead line was late June.

I had always been told that it's not in your best interest to start editing something which you've just finished writing. So I set aside the manuscript. It was on my laptop hard drive, and I could easily get to it if need be. I waited  a month. I was spending the night at a co-worker's house. Late Friday night shift and an early Saturday morning led to unhappiness when driving home and back. But, I digress. I figured a month was a good enough time. I pulled up the  file and ran a spelling and grammar check. Boy did the file need it. So that was technically my first editing pass on the book. The first of many.

Being a first time "author" I had no idea how to go about editing. I figured that I would want multiple passes on the book before I did anything with it. I was told that the first editing pass should be done by myself. In order to meet the goal of "reasonably edited" by late June I told myself there should be three editing passes. Myself as the first. (No, the spell check didn't count as an actual editing pass for these purposes). I decided when I finished with that I'd hand it off to someone who I know had more knowledge of the english language than me: my wife. Then, for the third pass a good friend I'd met through the internet.

Now, there is a difference between proof-reading and editing. The way I understand it, proof-reading is a matter of just correcting typos and cleaning up grammar. Editing is actually making the  story more clear and flow easier. Each pass is a combination of proof-reading and editing. With each pass, especially those not done by me, the book got better and better. Some changes made sense, such as filling out details. Other's not so much, such as changing the name of a major character.

I was able to get through all three of those editing passes. And get through them in enough time to get that proof copy. But, by getting it, I knew that there was still much more work to be done. Much more work . . .