After three years of slogging through the revisions on “The Pirate Novel” – as I have referred to it most often – I have finally finished draft two of the novel currently known as The Storm Weaver’s Daughters (this is its third title so who know what it’ll actually end up being called once all’s said and done). Well, draft two is mostly done, at least. I have gone from the first page to the last page and implemented the major changes I needed to in terms of plot progression and character development. There are still a few bits and bobs I need to take care of, but the bulk of the revision is FINALLY done. It’s been a long (and I mean loooooooooong) time coming.
I started “The Pirate Novel” as something silly to express my disappointment in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and it turned into something I actually wanted to progress with as its own story, so I filed off the Pirates of the Caribbean serial numbers, started doing some serious worldbuilding, and finished the first draft sometime in early 2019. Then I sent it to my critique group to alpha-read it and got good enough feedback that I decided to progress with a second draft. By the end of 2019, I had created a revision plan and knew what I wanted to do to fix this book. I was all set to spend 2020 revising it, sending it to beta readers, revising it some more, and then getting it ready for querying agents. I got about halfway through my edits during the first few months of 2020. I was on a role.
And then the pandemic hit.
I had a really hard time focusing on anything writing-related during those first few months of the pandemic, let alone something so attention-intensive as revising a novel, so I set it aside. I decided to focus on short fiction. Every few months, I’d try to come back to revising “The Pirate Novel.” I’d get through a chapter or two before my attention would meander again, and I’d pump out a bunch of new short stories (the past couple of years have been great for short stories for me).
About mid-year 2022, I decided enough was enough, and I was going to finish revising this god-damned pirate novel if it was the last thing I did. I set an award for myself for finishing it because I needed to bribe myself like a toddler, and stickers just weren’t going to cut it. I bought myself an advent calendar and divided the treats up by how many pages I had left to get through (I ended up being allowed to open one treat every ten pages). And then, the final months of 2022 decided to throw five deaths of people I knew/pets (not Eugene, but two of my parents’ dogs that had been in the family since I was a teenager), frequent migraines, and family illness at me.
I did not get my revisions done.
2023 started rough with persistent and mysterious migraines and continued family illness, but things got better. I found meds that worked for my migraines. I got new glasses. I was finally able to sit down and focus on this novel that was becoming the bane of my existence without feeling like someone was squeezing my eyeball in a vice. So naturally, I spent January writing short stories. February was a struggle, but I made progress on “The Pirate Novel.” March was a bit better, but work picked up, so I once again had to figure out how to balance getting my job done and making good progress on these revisions. I struck that balance this month.
Draft two isn’t completely finished and ready for Beta readers yet. I still need to go back and revise some parts of the first chapter that still aren’t sitting right with me. I decided midway through the revisions that I didn’t need one of my POVs, so now I need to cut that POV from the first half of the novel and redistribute any important plot points therein to the other POVS. There are a couple of places where I need to do some research on some sea-faring things, so I’m not being super vague and hand-wavy. I also completely forgot what my characters look like, so I need to make sure my character descriptions are consistent throughout. And finally, there are a couple of characters whose names I want to change.
So there’s still a bit left to do, but these are the types of revisions I’m generally pretty quick at getting through. Hopefully, I haven’t just jinxed myself.
I was debating whether to take a bit of time to let what I’ve done sit, but the next novel I want to write is already scratching at my brain’s back door, so I think I’d better just power through and finish these final edits and get this draft to some beta readers so I can let the next novel in and get to work on that.
That being said, if anyone thinks they’ll be available to beta-read for a 105,000-word novel about the bonds of sisterhood and adventure on the high seas later this year, let me know. I’m not sure when I’ll be done with these final edits, but I’m going to aim for sometime in June. I’ll probably allow for three to four months for betas to read and give their feedback. I’ll be putting out an official call for beta readers once the draft is officially done, but it never hurts to start looking early.
Anyway, I’m super happy to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with this project. I’m also glad that despite this being the sixth year of work on this novel, I actually still like it, which isn’t always the case when you’ve been working on a project for so long.
Thanks for reading!
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