Adventures in Editing

It has been almost three years since I completed the lengthiest novel of my career. Coming in at over 200,000 words on October 11th, I had no idea what I would do with the manuscript. For the past three years, I've edited small portions of the story, never really digging into the depths of its adventure. About five months ago, I decided to really attack the story.

And since then, I've found myself on a new, exciting adventure! I always knew that the easy part of the journey of an author was writing a novel. Although I have a lot of stories that provided me with characters that induced headaches and fights, the true struggle lies within editing. I'll admit that it probably isn't the best idea to tackle a 200,000+ word novel and try to condense its contents into about half of what it used to be. However, it's the idea I feel most urgent to pursue.

Whether or not it's in my best interest sanity-wise has yet to be proven. My characters in this novel fought tooth and nail while writing it. Bonds of Freedom is the novel I'm most attached to because of the effort I put into it. That seems crazy, considering most of it was written within the span of a month (on very little sleep too), but it's true. This story is the one I always come back to, always look at, and always compare my other works to.

It's the first story that had deeper meaning than just "another novel." It became the start of a realization that I do not want to write for the sake of writing. I want to write because of some deeper meaning and reason. I want to inspire others with my stories.

With all of that being said, it has turned my life upside down. Now, as I rip apart the bad verbage, hilarious typos, glaring mistakes, I find just as much suffering as I did when I first wrote the novel. It would be easier if I just abandoned the project, but I can't. It won't let me; and frankly, I don't want to give up on it either.

It is the beginning of an adventure that I am making up as I go along, but one that I am all too happy to take. Cheers to this new adventure!