Second rewrite

So...I finished work on my manuscript back in January. Completed the storyline and tied up a few of the loose ends which were still stubbornly hanging around after two years' work. From January until about the middle of this month I was busy rewriting the entire thing, tying up the rest of the loose ends and otherwise making my prose readable.

At least that's what I thought.

Turns out, after completing the first rewrite and trying to read the story again, I've decided it needs a second workover to tie up the loose ends I created by, you guessed it, tying up loose ends. It's so ironic and sad I could cry. Oh, and lets not forget that I've decided that my previous style of writing was a little too jumpy and unfocussed; needs a little sharpening on the details and, well, so forth and so on. In other words, now that I've finished my book for the second time, I've started on round three. Since I won't consider this monster done until I can read it from start to finish without having any questions or issues with the plot, language, style, pacing, etc, it looks like I'm going to be at this for a while.

Word of advice: Don't spend the money printing copies of your manuscript until you are SURE, and I mean SURE that it's good enough for someone else to read. Otherwise you end up with a mountain of extra paper that you can't really send to anyone. Yay for me...

Still, in case you're starting to wonder, I can't help but love the writing process. That process has a steep learning curve, and as much as it might be described in writing guides, by other authors, by teachers or whatever, not one of those sources is as powerful or as worthwhile as learning it on your own. As hard and tiring as it is, it's still rewarding every time I accomplish something, even if I'm the only one who knows about it.