Revising WIP...again.

I am currently taking the How To Revise Your Novel (HTRYN) by Holly Lisle //howtoreviseyournovel.com/login.php?s=noauth.

Each week a new lesson is presented, and currently there are fourteen lessons out. I'm on number five. It took me seven weeks just to get through the first one. I found it extremely helpful, and enjoyed diving into my neglected WIP again.

That first lesson was extremely in-depth, requiring a thorough reading while analyzing every single word. As I completed the final sentence of this lesson, a great sense of accomplishment filled me. Whew, now I can move on to something different, get my muse juice flowing again.

As I opened lesson two and read what was required, I couldn't help the disappointment that caused my body to sag. Another deep reading!

After trying to convince myself over and over that I was just really busy with "life" as a way to rationalize the reason the lesson wasn't even started, I came to the conclusion that I needed to skip it. I don't want to just give up when the work is something I don't think necessary.

I felt like lesson two could have been combine with lesson one. Why not look for some extra information WHILE you are doing the thorough reading, rather than having to do it all over again. Either that, or put the lesson later on in the course, so students don't get burnt out in the first two weeks.

So I skipped and went on to lesson three, which I really enjoyed. Lesson four proved difficult as I wasn't really able to find anything "missing or broken" with my plot and subplots. Am I being ignorant? I'd like to think that the fact that I'm not finding any issues is because I have edited this manuscript at least seven times and I've been working on it for two years. So all those issues were resolved many revisions ago, but believe me, there were plenty back then.

Motto of this blog: do what works best for you. Don't give up just because something gets hard or you don't feel like it. Either move on and be confident in the decision, or feel free to go back to it later.

Not sure which I will do yet.