My manuscript is complete. It’s an odd sensation, because I’m not getting the urge to jump up and down and squeal excessively (or collapse in a bed and sleep) as I thought I would. There’s a mellow satisfaction, along with the itchy sensation that I need to start pruning filter words and honing down my query.
(In case anyone is wondering what the heck filter words are and how to handle their menace: this is an excellent post.)
I’ve just created a document of 44 words I’m going to obsessively delete – or, more practically, cut down as much as I can (command+F is my best friend right now). I’ve already gone through and whittled away at “seem” and “suddenly,” and am quite frankly sick of looking at them. There are still a few of them in my manuscript, but they are no longer choking up my prose to the “-nth” degree, so I’m satisfied about those for now. I’m going to state the obvious and say how fascinating it is that there are so many ways to say one thing.
As for my query – that I actually started a couple months ago. I’ve had a little practice with query-making, due to the first manuscript I completed but is on hold because of a lot of structural problems. This query was easier to form, which I believe is due to practice as well as the lack of structural errors that plagued the writing of the other query.
Of course, there will be a few more rounds of edits for the manuscript, and hopefully a few beta readers. I’m hoping to start querying in a month or two. For now, it’s editing, editing, editing until my brain falls out!
Great post, I’m just starting to edit my first novel so this is a huge help. Thanks!!!