April 8, 2023

It’s funny how much can change in a week. A week ago, I was in full panic mode about this book, and all of the revisions that needed to happen, and I was convinced that I would never get it done. Now, I’ve just wrapped up the bulk of the revisions, and I can see that sweet light at the end of the tunnel.

Did I have to ignore pretty much every aspect of my life besides book revisions for the week to get this done? Yes. But did I get it done? Also, yes. And man, I have learned a good lesson about the revision phase for my next book.

Getting away for a writing retreat worked so well for getting the initial draft of the manuscript done, and I think it might be something that I do for my next book’s revision phase as well. My brain really thrives when I’m able to compartmentalize, and if I could get away for 4-5 days and only focus on taking care of myself, and revisions, I would have been much less stressed throughout the week. Then, I could get the bulk of revisions done while I was away, and finish the smaller revisions throughout a few weeks. (Because I will also definitely give myself much more time for revisions with the next book.)

That’s essentially what this revision phase has boiled down to – one massive revision, with some smaller revisions to come. The book that I have printed out right now is nowhere near the same book that my beta readers read. Which is kind of fun, because they’ll get to experience it all over again. It’s a bit mind-blowing how different it is though. For the first time in a long time, I’m feeling really proud of this book, and excited to get it into the hands of readers. And I couldn’t have done it without my beta readers, and my content editor, Jodi.

So, what’s next? Over the next week, I’ll go through a few smaller revision phases. Now that the major changes are made, I’ve printed the manuscript. First, I’ll read through that and make changes with a pen. Once I update the draft with those changes, I’ll be:

• going through to make smaller changes left in the notes from my editor and notes I’ve made for myself
• double checking things for consistency (like making sure I wrote content marketing instead of Content Marketing)
• checking all of my intros/outros for each chapter to make sure things still flow correctly since I moved chunks of the book around

As light as I’m feeling right now, I am very much still in a time-crunch which means another week of ignoring everything else in order to finish these revisions. But man, does it feel good to have a draft I’m excited about!

Love and cat-hair hugs,

Amanda

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