I am an Editing Tornado

Unfortunately, my editing tornado seems to have found my manuscript, and believed it to be a dumping ground for word debris. I'm making steady progress with the changes recommended by Fabulous Agent Person, but in addition to chopping away a lot of unnecessary stuff, I think the story has developed some sort of metastatic tumor. It's growing out of control.

I'm almost 2/3 of the way through the revision, and it's already 7k words LONGER than it was when I started. I'm scared I'm writing myself right out of the target first-novel range on word count. It's currently just over 103k. Yikes! And the biggest chunk of revisions is still to come. I'm actually getting nervous I'm going to end up with a bloated, overdone story. But I've just put in what was asked of me.

It'll take one more revision, and hopefully after the story is revised, I can go back and prune away the excess. I'm terrified the next revision will add even more words, at this rate! :)

So this past weekend, I really attacked the edits. I even got grumpy when I had to stop for such things as eating and sleeping. I guess that's also a good sign that things are going well. When I'm in a writing rut, I seek out distractions, but when I'm on a roll, I hate to stop. I actually yelled at Tim when he suggested we think about making dinner last night. Sorry about that, hon.

It's also supposed to be gorgeous here in a few days, like near 70. I went outside to work for a few minutes yesterday, but it was still too cold. I think by Wednesday I'll be able to sit outside for work again. I actually miss it.

I'll probably take those two gorgeous days and finish the deck, though. The contractor is supposed to finish the house today or tomorrow (weather permitting), so I'll finally be able to paint the deck floorboards. I can't paint them until he's done, because he hasn't learned to hover in mid-air yet, and he needs to stand on them to finish his work. That's what I get for hiring cut-rate contractors. No hovercrafts.

I really need to get back to work. Or perhaps back to sleep. I can't believe myself now.

Also: Excited about two writing contests: One at Janet Reid's blog: http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/
The other at MSFV:  http://www.misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/

Janet Reid's contest runs for another 10 days, so I have that long to get my MS in shape. MSFV closes at 5 pm EST today. Good luck to any who want to enter.

So for now, back to work.