I’m still outlining my current novel project. But some of you out there are revising novels. The first quarter of 2012 is already almost half over, but if that “revising a novel” thing describes you, then you might still find this to be of interest.
Writer Merrilee Faber has launched on her blog what she calls “Project 2012”: a one-year plan to revise an existing first draft and start and finish a new first draft for a new book during the 2012 calendar year. She’s got a pretty tight program for how to achieve those two concurrent goals, and a few interesting tools to help along the way. So if this sounds interesting to you, maybe you should check it out.
What follows are some links to some of the first few interesting posts she’s put up on the project:
http://notenoughwords.wordpress.com/category/project-2012/
http://notenoughwords.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/project-2012-from-first-draft-to-submission/
http://notenoughwords.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/project-2012-program-outline/
http://notenoughwords.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/project-2012-and-a-plan-with-a-capital-p/
Plus, here’s another tool that one writer – Kerryn Angell, a particpant of Merrilee’s “Project 2012” – built off of Merrilee’s tools:
http://www.kerrynangell.com/2012/01/project-2012-starting-your-revision/
Of course… as I said, I’m not revising. I’m still plotting and hopefully soon writing my first draft. So what I’m really doing here is posting these links up for my own personal future reference, come that time when I am finally revising (Project 2013? 2014? Somewhere in-between?)… But hey, if you are revising, it doesn’t hurt if this helps you out, too.
The Undiscovered Author 
That is an interesting way to break down a novel for edits! I like that it’s broken into a whole year which seems manageable. Hmm, only thing I’d change is to leave at least one quarter for beta reading / feedback + more time to make revisions afterwards. It takes a lot more time than I anticipated 😉
Yeah, I agree, beta-reading time probably needs to be factored in – and that’s going to vary as much by the beta readers themselves as it will by the author.
Thanks for the shout-out, Stephen!
T.S., a revision takes as little or as much time as you have. I work a full-time job and have a family, so a year is practical for me. If I wasn’t working and my kids were in school, I would expect this to take 3-6 months. But every writer works at their own pace.
As for critique, that is absolutely included in the time. I would never think of sending a story out without it. But how long that part takes depends on the magnitude of the issues within a manuscript. I don’t send anything out for crit unless it is heavily polished, but other writers have alpha- and beta- readers for different parts of the writing process. Which is fine. Feedback is feedback 🙂
No problem. I was interested in what you were writing about on this topic, even though I’m at the polar opposite end of the writing process.
Interesting. Doesn’t seem to have a lot of applicability to my processes, but interesting to read, and I loved the comment, “I don’t find time to write, I _make_ time to write.”
No, I expect it wouldn’t for your process. Each of us has to make our own way…
Ugh. Stephen, you pegged me. I’m (supposed to be) revising three novels, and by “revising” I mean “procrastinating…
Browsed the links, and they look very helpful indeed. Many thanks! 🙂
Hah! Get to work! Slacker! 😉