III

Imbolc                                                              Valentine Moon

Considering a strategy for revision.  How do I utilize the comments, opinions, various thoughts from my beta readers?  Where do I begin?  Do I proceed from front to back or do I manage certain structural issues first?  How much time should I give myself to complete it?  May 1st seems good.  That would give me six weeks accounting for the D.C. trip and beginning work in the garden and with the bees.

OK.  May 1st.  Beltane.  Finish revision III in time for the growing season.  A good time to start full bore on writing Loki’s Children.  And getting that revision in the hands of an agent.  I have a March 30 class on publishing at the Loft, so that should work well with that timing.

Given the time frame, which if you notice I set as I wrote, I can reason backwards to plan.  Review all the comments.  Have done.  Note down all that needs to be done.  Their ideas, my impression of what they mean for Missing, and my ideas sparked by the reader’s impressions, then set to work.

(note, I revised my ideas on revision after I found this handy pyramid.  I’m gonna follow it.)

Make sense to me to deal with structural issues first.  Transitions, movement of the story as regards John and the unmaking–their relative weights and interleaving.  The POV issue is structural, too, in this case.  Finding those areas where the action flags and cutting them out.

After those I can attend to the character development/recognition matters and the map/diverse number of places, plus revamping the action in light of the cuts above.

Finished up my computer upgrade this morning by installing the speakers.  Now I have a Pandora station playing, Early Music.  Nice with the snow falling.