Rewrite Complete!

Well, I did it, people. Yup, finally finished rewriting A Picture of the Past! Oh, don’t get me wrong–there is still a ton of work to do. Since my “editing” turned into “rewriting”, there is still actual editing to do, and I cringe to think how long that will take!

You know what this rewrite meant, though? It means that in August alone (as in, in eight days, which is when I finished), I wrote 19,506 words! In July, I wrote 43,000! I’m pretty sure NaNoWriMo is suddenly going to feel like a breeze.

However, that also means that I currently have a manuscript of 116,000 words instead of 90,000, so I have the joy of figuring out how to cut over 20k words while I’m editing. Oh, yay. Just don’t tell the agents while I am preparing my pitch (if you are reading this, I swear I’m going to cut it down!)

And, oh, my gosh, the research! I know I was only able to rewrite it this well because I did the research trip last year, but now that I know all the actual settings in my book, I feel like I need to do the research trip again to fill in all the teeny tiny details that google just won’t give up! Yesterday, I got stuck for ages just trying to find out what stores Elizabeth would walk past in Sacramento to get to the docks in 1859. I feel like the historical societies in every single city should have a timeline with lists of stores and places open during specific years for us poor writers.

But for now, I’m going to take a few days to catch up on social media stuff and maybe submit Drawn Into Love to another publisher!

Cheers to all my fellow editors/writers who recently accomplished…well, anything!