Novel Edit Update #1: Bones & Dreams

Title: Bones & Dreams

Genre: Dark Fantasy, New Adult

Premise: On the verge of an ancient goddess breaking out of her prison, a self-righteous man and strong-willed woman from opposing cultures enter a blood-thirsty forest with orders to stop the event. But when the ritual requires something that will haunt them forever, they must learn that autonomy is essential to their own happiness, before betrayal leads to an old war being re-started between their peoples.

First Draft Word Count: 58,226 words

First Draft Completion Date: December 27th 2020

Welcome to the first edit update for my current novel-in-progress! 😊

For the past couple of months, I have been following the first steps of Jessica Brody's Writing Mastery Complete Revision course. This includes a hands-off (no editing) read through of my first draft and creating a revision plan at the Story (big picture) Level. 

I wanted to edit this novel a lot sooner but the last 3 years have proved difficult with a lot of challenges and grief in my personal life. However, I am starting to get back into a good mental space to start work on my editing once again. 

If you would like to follow my journey as I edit my dark fantasy novel, Bones & Dreams, I will be posting a new update here at the end of each month. Each post will have a summary of the progress I've made, my editing goals for each month, as well as other details about my novel. 

This post is technically November's update, but I've been sick with the flu and unable to post this until now.

Goal(s) for December 2023:

1. Finish creating the Story Level revision plan for my first draft - which currently focuses on the first of Jessica Brody's checkpoints: Does my story have a solid structure?

When I wrote the first draft of Bones & Dreams it was the first time I had ever tried to do pantsing (i.e. writing without a plan) and although it helped me to get the book written, it now needs a lot of work 😭 Plotting never worked well for me before either (I would plot so much that my passion and motivation would fade quickly when I got around to writing). Next time I write a novel, I think I will need to be a plantser (i.e. a balance between plotting and pantsing).

I think this will be my only goal for now - though I hope to achieve more - because with a holiday, a couple of birthdays, my day-job, and the Christmas season this month, I don't know how much time I will have for my editing before the new year 😅