#LameshaJuniorNovel has undergone five revisions. Pause. I completed five revisions! And with each draft, it’s necessary that I celebrate my progress.
Recap
#LameshaJuniorNovel is my novel that I’ve been working on for more than a year. I finished the first draft in July 2020. The pandemic has slowed me down a lot, but I’m very committed to this project. My novel’s genre is women’s fiction. It’s written in first person point of view and my main character is a Black woman. If she were real, I’d want to be friends with her and her sister.
Five Drafts
I’ve taken my time with each step of the writing process. When it came time to revising my novel, I initially set an unrealistic goal to finish revising the second draft of my novel in a week. Unrealistic goals only leave me disappointed. And disappointment sometimes births a host of negative feelings. Negative thoughts only serve as roadblocks that slow me down. One thing that I’ve learned to do is replace the unwanted, negative thoughts with positive ones.
To finish draft five, I knew that I needed to be positive. So set a firm realistic goal. Something that I could attain but also would keep me disciplined with my writing. I knew that my writing process isn’t fast paced. I knew that I would take my time revising my novel. And last week when I finished this latest revision, I was so proud of myself for not giving up and making my goal.
Unrealistic goals only leave me disappointed. And disappointment sometimes births a host of negative feelings. Negative thoughts only serve as roadblocks that slow me down.
Lamesha Junior
Two Tips to Revise Your Novel
- Create a checklist before you start
- What do you want to revise? Dialogue? First scene? Ending? Characters motivations? Entire book?
- Use and update this list as you revise
- Read your book
- For every revision, I read my entire novel.
- You can read it yourself or use the ‘Read Aloud’ option in your word processing software.
What’s next?
I will now begin working on my synopsis and query letter. The synopsis is a one or two page summary of my book. A query letter is a short letter that I will send to literary agents. It will detail information about my book and provide a short synopsis or blub.
Questions
Writers: What’s one tip you have for revising your manuscript?
Readers: Do you read women’s fiction?
~Lamesha