I’ve been gearing up to do a revision post for awhile, but as I’ve stated before, I prefer to wait until I’m out of the forrest before I describe the trees.
I wish this was all more process oriented, but I’m not very good at following a process.
Or being oriented.
Instead, a brief timeline on the revisions leading up to this point followed by a flushed out explanation of past month or so.
August 2005–Started the book when hubby went out of town with daughter for a week. Pounded out 20,000 words in a month (all words which eventually ceased to exist), then promptly shelved the novel for almost two years because it was too "cute" and not "literary" and I was "stupid".
September 2007–started querying agents with other novel.
November 2007–grew frustrated with the waiting and decided to work on another project. Sent the first couple of chapters to my friend, Lisa, who encouraged me to/demanded I finish by Christmas and deliver it to her with a big, red bow.
January 2008–finished first draft. Still owe Lisa a red bow.
Jan-March–shared with critique group. Revised. Shared with a writer friend. Revised again. At this point, it was still pretty rough but…
March 2008–offered representation for other novel as well as Princess. We decided to submit Princess for Hire first. Which means…
April-May 2008–Revised. Rinse, wash, repeat
June 2008–Offer! Huzzah! This story must be PERFECT!
August 2008–First Revision letter. Holy Crap. Work. To. Do. (Such as cutting the last half of the book for later use in the series, rewriting two major plot lines, switching up and flushing out characters, and world building. Sorry, WORLD BUILDING).
October 2008–Turned revision in feeling pretty good about my masterpiece. Glad I got that over with, it’s PERFECT!
Which brings us to December 2008 and revision letter 2.
In pictures…

D-Day. Reading over the second revision letter. Thought Process:
Oh man, she’s right, I should have flushed that out more. Oh boy, yeah, this scene is unnecessary. Wait, what? Cut this? No. But I should explain that better. And what should I name this princess?
Now, some people get their big picture revision letter, followed by a line edit, followed by copy edits. Some people go through seven rounds of back and forth. I think I’m in between. My editor sent me a pretty long second letter, but this involved smaller points than my initial letter. She also sent me a marked up manuscript that looked like this.

Here’s an average page. You’ll see there is some cutting, some additions, and in the side margins thoughts and clarifications. A page like this could take me five minutes to fix, or a whole day, based on how the suggestions impact the whole house of cards I call a book.

And so I get into the groove, and then my time is up and I have to get back to my family (youngest is a photo booth nut). You see, this revision is unique for me because I did the first half of it while my husband had his school finals, and the rest while home for the holidays. Which sounds awful, but was actually nice because I had a house full of babysitters. The hard part was escaping to the princess world while my family was playing a game and laughing in the next room.

La di da, everything is going well until I hit this. A revision box. Nooooooo! My editor uses these on pages I should either
1. cut
2. change so much that it’d be a waste of our time for her to line edit.
My first revision had chapters and chapters of boxes. This one didn’t hurt. That much.

Ah, these are the pages I live for! No mark-ups because it actually works. The little note I’m pointing at says "You’re a genius". Um, I might have framed this page.

And here is my view from my revision chair in my dad’s den, which I stole for two weeks much to his dismay. See, I don’t do desks or tables when I write. Couches and recliners and little airplane pillows wrapped around my neck. Anyway, I’m sure my mother would like me to point out this room is usually far cleaner than this. Or it will be, once she sweeps in for one of her may room make-overs.
Someday I want a room like this–books, mess and all.

The end, just before I hit send. Notice the bags under my eyes. It’s taken eight cucumbers, but I think they’re almost banished, along with my revision zits. The donut-eating booty though? Still there. Still there.
We’re looking at one more edit now–nothing huge (I hope) and then it goes to copy edits.

And there’s my happy ever after. Any revision questions?