A Lesson in Editing and a Disappearing Trick

I can’t believe it’s been five months since I signed my contract and attempted to cut 35,000 words off my WIP. I’ve painfully and faithfully cut 30,000 words and have the last 5,000 to go.

Cutting any WIP down has been a challenge. First, I snipped the obvious. Overused words, expression, those darn passive verbs. Pretty painless. Then I moved onto chopping my prose, those Witty lines I labored over…my little darlings. Ouch! It hurt, but I left the best ones in. Still, nowhere NEAR 30,000 words. Onto cutting down BIG scenes…unnecessary scenes. Like a band-aid ripped from skin IT HURT. But I lived and my WIP was shorter…still not short enough. Back to square one. Cutting unnecessary words this time with a heavier hand, more passive verbs, extra adjectives and descriptions went next, and back to those darlings….AND those secondary characters that didn’t add to the story…gone along with entire scenes!

After some internal tear drying and a month break, I went back to hacking up my WIP. Funny how less painful this pass was. Things I wouldn’t think of cutting before, disappeared with ease. Now I’m down to three weeks before deadline. Surprisingly, I’m calmly panicking. Having worked on weekly newspapers in my past, I know I work pretty well under pressure . I don’t think my family would agree! But I still have 5,000 words to cut, some motivations to fix, a character to add (just a snippet,) and an entire ending to redo.

Will I do it? Of course, I have to, though since this is my FIRST deadline, I’m not sure how it will go. I’m not sure even if my anthology partners will have time to read my novella, and I’m not really sure if my story will impress. But I will do it! What choice do I have.

So when you notice my rss feed has not refreshed, and the same old post has been up for days, maybe weeks. Think of me and pray for me and visit Writer…Interrupted. I’m on my first deadline, and I’m lost in unknown territory.

I’m sure I’ll have a tale to tell when I emerge!!