Holy Snikeys, squiders, how is it Thursday already? Between it being the last week of the critique marathon and having chapters due to my in-person critique group for the meeting this weekend, I feel like I’m behind on everything else.
But, yes, this is it. The end. Week 12 of the 12-week critique marathon. I’ve got Chapter 8 up for this week, which is kind of funny to me, because this is the same chapter I got through last time I ran Book 1 through the marathon, except it used to be Chapter 9, so we’ve actually gotten worse.
Except not really. I took two weeks off (due to travel) and had to rewrite two chapters (3 and 5) due to the rules of the marathon, and the resulting rewrites are much much stronger. Who knew that having people call you on your bull would make you actually fix it, and hey, make it better.
(I mean, everyone. That’s the point of critique.)
So now, moving on, I shall have to go through the rest of the revision without people calling me on it, and I’m a little worried that I’m going to fall back into my lazy ways without the constant feedback.
I will still have my in-person group, who is also lovely, but that’s once a month, so instead of getting through 3-4 chapters a month, I shall be down to 2 (and I’m unsure if there’s a standard for when to rewrite versus just pushing on. I shall have to ask.). Feedback-wise, at least. Hopefully I’m getting through 3-4 on my own, and then I’ll have margin.
The winter marathon typically starts at the beginning of January, so there is the possibility that I can run the second half of the book through then (the book is 30 chapters) but I would also, you know, not like to be revising this book for the rest of my life.
On the other hand, I am a little weary. Aside from receiving critiques one must, of course, give critiques, and that does mean there’s a few hours a week going to critiquing versus working on my own stuff.
(Although there’s also the possibility that I will procrastinate my own stuff, but I don’t tend to procrastinate critiquing other stuff.)
We shall just have to see how it all goes down, I guess.
I need to do some other stuff too. Figure out what we’re doing about SkillShare, for one. Send out my newsletter.
But the general plan moving forward is to spend my free time next week updating the current draft with feedback from my in-person group (after the meeting Sunday), then updating based on the last two weeks of the marathon, and then just moving along on my own. I may try to keep the Monday-per-chapter deadline to make sure I’m moving along.
Anyway, wish me luck!
