How Many More Rounds of Edits Before Publication?
I honestly have no clue when publication will be if there will be anything happening anyways but I will keep you guys posted as soon as I possibly can about those things. How long is the book that is a very good question I have my laptop here I mean I didn't do my editing here I do it on my laptop so then I can go wherever I need to go like I did the majority of my edits at my boyfriend's house because no one was there and it was just a relaxing nice place to do it but this is a nice aesthetic setup so this is where we're sitting today.
So I am going to open up the draft and see what my draft ended up being because I don't remember so it ended up being 72,070 words so that is definitely up I think it was 62,000 when I finished it either the first time or my second draft I'm not entirely sure but it was nice to be able to add to it and not have to take away I think that adding is much easier especially because I'm just a creative person and I love the act of writing more than editing so being able to edit but also add things made the process much easier for me to handle.
How Different Was the Initial First Draft from the Manuscript?
It's very different because like I said I had to add a lot so I added in some flashbacks and that's something that like I'm not sure about but I felt like it added to the relationship because I don't want to go into my critiques just because I feel like that's like something just for me to know but I think that adding the flashbacks and adding I added a couple of chapters and I added a whole sort of plot line going on there I think that that definitely changed it so much from the first draft and I think it is a more well-developed story overall.
Favorite Types of Scenes or Parts to Write
In the editing process loved writing the flashback scenes I thought they were a lot of fun and it really brought me into the characters and I love my characters so that was awesome but overall I love writing the romance scenes they're some of my favorites like I'm just a sucker for it and Finn as I told you guys is my favorite so that was really awesome and fun.
Querying and Agents
A couple of you guys asked some questions about querying and agents and stuff and I talked about that a lot in my last writing update so I will link that down below for you guys I talked about outlining and more specifics on twin travel novel in that as well so you can watch that I don't want to get too repetitive with these writing updates so I tried to kind of focus on the editing and drafting questions here but I hope you guys enjoyed.
Falling in Love with My Book
Editing it made me fall in love with it again every time I read it I fall in love with it and I don't know how to say that without like sounding narcissistic but I don't know I just feel like it's this beautiful baby that I've created and I hope so strongly that one day you guys will get to read it and we'll get to see it because I think that you guys will really love it and I hope you guys will love it as much as I do.
Conclusion
But it's been great working with an editor and agent and finally getting towards the steps to publication and that much closer like oh it's lovely So as much as I kind of complained about the editing process I'm very happy to be in the editing process because that means that we are getting somewhere with it so I will suck it up and edit as much as I need to if that means that one day you might be able to read this book also thank you guys so so much for your continued support with my writing and everything one of my favorite comments that I get is you guys saying that you want to read my book one day like it brings tears to my eyes and makes me just so happy it means the world to me so if you guys did want to keep up with writing as well as reading and all of that stuff don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that bell icon so you'll be notified whenever I post I post new videos twice a week but we are getting into bookmas so I will be posting a video every other day in December plus some bonus videos along the way so stay tuned for that.
Social Media
You can also follow me on all of my social media all my links are down below I give a lot of writing updates there and stuff like that so thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you in my next video very soon bye.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's haley and today i'm going to be doing a writing update so in case this is the first one of these that you are watching welcome to my writing updates i will link the playlist down below for you guys but basically i have been making writing a priority in my life for two years now and i have been on the journey to getting a book published actually on shelves at a bookstore for two years it is a very long process i have written two books in the past two years and my last writing update i did was when i actually signed with an agent so i am on my way one step closer to getting to publication the one book i wrote is nicknamed book of sisters and that is a fantasy novel that i have on the back burner for now the book that i signed with an agent is known as twin travel novel it does have a title i'm just not telling you guys yet but it is about a girl who goes backpacking across europe after the death of her twin sister so it is an emotional but fun story at the same time and it is a book that i love very very much and i am doing a writing update for you guys because i have finished with my first round of edits with the agent and i am so excited about it so today i'm going to be kind of bringing you guys up to speed about what happens next what i have done all of that stuff as well as answering some of your questions i asked for some questions on twitter and we are going to be going from there so lots to talk about let's just dive in so like i said my last update was when i got my agent so what happens when you get an agent is they will do some rounds of edits with you and get you into fighting shape for going on submission now when you're on submission that is when publishers will be looking at your work and reading it and deciding if they want to bid on it you're basically kind of at auction now keep in mind i'm not an expert on this this is just kind of like my own knowledge and my own experience but i currently am in the stage where having an agent is no guarantee that you're going to get published it just is like it's a really good thing and a better sign that you will probably get published but it's absolutely no guarantee so obviously i really really hope that one day you will get to read this book i love it so much and i hope that you guys will too but there is still no guarantee that it will actually happen but having an agent is a great great step so it's still something i'm very excited about so my agent is susie townsend and along with an editor at the agency we went through our first round of edits now this first round of edits i waited for a while to get them and i wasn't sure what to expect i was kind of expecting to get back my manuscript with like this is what you did wrong this is what you did wrong this is what you did wrong but that is not what i got so what i got was a nine page letter of here are the things that you need to fix here's what you did well but it was big overarching thematical things so when i got that i'm not gonna lie my brain kind of just like it it was yeah i was pretty mind blown there was nothing in the letter that surprised me they were things that i knew i had to work on but i didn't quite know how to fix on my own so i was glad that i did have kind of the intuition to know what was wrong and definitely agreed with my editor my editor and agent have been so great and it's been so awesome working with them so from getting that letter it was time for me to actually dive in and fix the damn thing so i went through the letter and kind of highlighted the things that i needed to fix and came up with a game plan because there were some pretty major things that needed attention and it just was things that i wasn't sure how to do it so i had to think about it for a while in brainstorm i had a brainstorming phone call with my editor and that was very helpful and eventually i was like i'm ready to do this so from there i went chapter by chapter and i just went through it and did it and i was lucky because i didn't have to take out a lot i really didn't have to take out anything i had to change some things and modify some things but i ended up adding words so i think i ended up in the end adding 10 000 more words and i don't know if from here i literally just sent it off last night so i finished with it last night and sent it off but i'm not sure if from here we're going to go into another round of thematical edits i know we're not done with edits because there will be line edits or copy edits which is where you go through the grammatical stuff and spelling errors and typos and things like that which i think will be a lot easier because that's like there's no gray area there and no thought process it's just these are the things that you need to fix so that i can very easily do it's just with the big theme things i get overwhelmed easily and that was definitely my experience with edits was i was very overwhelmed for a while my anxiety was just like going off and i couldn't write but then i finally came to terms with it and i think that i did a pretty good job it's hard to tell that's the other thing it's very hard to tell if i'm fixing it because it's my own issues but i think that i did a pretty good job of fixing it and getting it into the best shape that i possibly could so we will see where we go from here if we do another round of thematical edits that's okay i'm totally fine with that because i want it to be the best it can possibly be before going off to publishers so a lot of you guys have been asking where do we go from here so basically what is going to happen is at least one more round of edits possibly two or more and then i go on submission which will basically be me just waiting and seeing if anyone wants to buy my book and publish it and hopefully they will want to but once again no guarantee so i'm going to dive into the q a now because i think most of the other things that i wanted to touch upon will be in these questions from what i remember seeing so the first question is what was the hardest part of the editing process so far and the hardest part was definitely just getting used to it i don't like editing it's just because i like to be creating something new and i like to move on to the next project when i'm done with one but i do recognize that it's absolutely necessary so i do put up with it but i think that having edits given to me and having such big things that needed to be fixed and not a specific easy fix for them it definitely wasn't an easy process and that was the hardest thing for me was coming to terms with it and not getting overwhelmed and realizing that it doesn't have to be perfect because i was kind of in my mind like this is my first round of edits like i have to perfect it and fix absolutely everything and make sure it's okay but if i don't really know how to fix something yet that's okay and we can go back and fix it later i just need to do the best that i possibly can to fix what i need to fix so coming to terms with the fact that it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect there are going to be more rounds of edits that was a hard thing and just not getting overwhelmed by all of it because it is a very overwhelming process what was it like editing for an agent and editor versus editing for yourself it was both harder and easier in a way i think it was better for me is what i'm trying to say because when i was editing for myself it's hard to see my own mistakes because i'm so familiar with the story and in my mind i know what i want it to be and it just is like out on the page so as i'm writing i just expect it to turn out how it is in my head and when i'm going back and reading it through and editing it was hard to pinpoint some mistakes and also like i said i didn't really know how to fix the mistakes that i knew were there so editing with an editor and agent was easier in a way because i was given more feedback from other people and more specifics so i knew what to look for and had someone to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of so that was very helpful it was also harder because i had that accountability there and i had someone who i knew was going to be reading it and critiquing it afterwards and was looking for me to fix these things so there was definitely more pressure but i do think it was good pressure to have or else i can go easy on myself sometimes and i wasn't given the opportunity to do that and i think that was definitely good for me and the manuscript in the end what's a realistic timeline for steps going forward to publication i honestly have no clue i don't know when i will get feedback back about these edits because we're going into holidays now american thanksgiving is coming up and then christmas and everything so i wouldn't imagine that i will get any feedback until early 2020 and then from there it depends on how many more rounds of edits before we go on submission with publishers so i honestly have no clue when publication will be if there will be anything happening anyways but i will keep you guys posted as soon as i possibly can about those things how long is the book that is a very good question i have my laptop here i mean i didn't do my editing here i do it on my laptop so then i can go wherever i need to go like i did the majority of my edits at my boyfriend's house because no one was there and it was just a relaxing nice place to do it but this is a nice aesthetic setup so this is where we're sitting today so i am going to open up the draft and see what my draft ended up being because i don't remember so it ended up being 72 070 words so that is definitely up i think it was 62 000 when i finished it either the first time or my second draft i'm not entirely sure but it was nice to be able to add to it and not have to take away i think that adding is much easier especially because i'm just a creative person and i love the act of writing more than editing so being able to edit but also add things made the process much easier for me to handle how different was the initial first draft from the manuscript that you just edited or how much editing did you do altogether so it's very different because like i said i had to add a lot so i added in some flashbacks and that's something that like i'm not sure about but i felt like it added to the relationship because i don't want to go into my critiques just because i feel like that's like something just for me to know but i think that adding the flashbacks and adding i added a couple of chapters and i added a whole sort of plot line going on there i think that that definitely changed it so much from the first draft and i think it is a more well-developed story overall what were your favorite types of scenes slash parts to write so i in the editing process loved writing the flashback scenes i thought they were a lot of fun and it really brought me into the characters and i love my characters so that was awesome but overall i love writing the romance scenes they're some of my favorites like i'm just a sucker for it and finn as i told you guys is my favorite so that was really awesome and fun so those are all the questions that i'm going to answer today a couple of you guys asked some questions about querying and agents and stuff and i talked about that a lot in my last writing update so i will link that down below for you guys i talked about outlining and more specifics on twin travel novel in that as well so you can watch that i don't want to get too repetitive with these writing updates so i tried to kind of focus on the editing and drafting questions here but i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you guys are really excited for twin travel novel honestly editing it made me fall in love with it again every time i read it i fall in love with it and i don't know how to say that without like sounding narcissistic but i don't know i just feel like it's this beautiful baby that i've created and i hope so strongly that one day you guys will get to read it and we'll get to see it because i think that you guys will really love it and i hope you guys will love it as much as i do but it's been great working with an editor and agent and finally getting towards the steps to publication and that much closer like oh it's lovely so as much as i kind of complained about the editing process i'm very happy to be in the editing process because that means that we are getting somewhere with it so i will suck it up and edit as much as i need to if that means that one day you might be able to read this book also thank you guys so so much for your continued support with my writing and everything one of my favorite comments that i get is you guys saying that you want to read my book one day like it brings tears my eyes and makes me just so happy it means the world to me so if you guys did want to keep up with writing as well as reading and all of that stuff don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that bell icon so you'll be notified whenever i post i post new videos twice a week but we are getting into bookmas so i will be posting a video every other day in december plus some bonus videos along the way so stay tuned for that you can also follow me on all of my social media all my links are down below i give a lot of writing updates there and stuff like that so thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in my next video very soon bye dohey everyone it's haley and today i'm going to be doing a writing update so in case this is the first one of these that you are watching welcome to my writing updates i will link the playlist down below for you guys but basically i have been making writing a priority in my life for two years now and i have been on the journey to getting a book published actually on shelves at a bookstore for two years it is a very long process i have written two books in the past two years and my last writing update i did was when i actually signed with an agent so i am on my way one step closer to getting to publication the one book i wrote is nicknamed book of sisters and that is a fantasy novel that i have on the back burner for now the book that i signed with an agent is known as twin travel novel it does have a title i'm just not telling you guys yet but it is about a girl who goes backpacking across europe after the death of her twin sister so it is an emotional but fun story at the same time and it is a book that i love very very much and i am doing a writing update for you guys because i have finished with my first round of edits with the agent and i am so excited about it so today i'm going to be kind of bringing you guys up to speed about what happens next what i have done all of that stuff as well as answering some of your questions i asked for some questions on twitter and we are going to be going from there so lots to talk about let's just dive in so like i said my last update was when i got my agent so what happens when you get an agent is they will do some rounds of edits with you and get you into fighting shape for going on submission now when you're on submission that is when publishers will be looking at your work and reading it and deciding if they want to bid on it you're basically kind of at auction now keep in mind i'm not an expert on this this is just kind of like my own knowledge and my own experience but i currently am in the stage where having an agent is no guarantee that you're going to get published it just is like it's a really good thing and a better sign that you will probably get published but it's absolutely no guarantee so obviously i really really hope that one day you will get to read this book i love it so much and i hope that you guys will too but there is still no guarantee that it will actually happen but having an agent is a great great step so it's still something i'm very excited about so my agent is susie townsend and along with an editor at the agency we went through our first round of edits now this first round of edits i waited for a while to get them and i wasn't sure what to expect i was kind of expecting to get back my manuscript with like this is what you did wrong this is what you did wrong this is what you did wrong but that is not what i got so what i got was a nine page letter of here are the things that you need to fix here's what you did well but it was big overarching thematical things so when i got that i'm not gonna lie my brain kind of just like it it was yeah i was pretty mind blown there was nothing in the letter that surprised me they were things that i knew i had to work on but i didn't quite know how to fix on my own so i was glad that i did have kind of the intuition to know what was wrong and definitely agreed with my editor my editor and agent have been so great and it's been so awesome working with them so from getting that letter it was time for me to actually dive in and fix the damn thing so i went through the letter and kind of highlighted the things that i needed to fix and came up with a game plan because there were some pretty major things that needed attention and it just was things that i wasn't sure how to do it so i had to think about it for a while in brainstorm i had a brainstorming phone call with my editor and that was very helpful and eventually i was like i'm ready to do this so from there i went chapter by chapter and i just went through it and did it and i was lucky because i didn't have to take out a lot i really didn't have to take out anything i had to change some things and modify some things but i ended up adding words so i think i ended up in the end adding 10 000 more words and i don't know if from here i literally just sent it off last night so i finished with it last night and sent it off but i'm not sure if from here we're going to go into another round of thematical edits i know we're not done with edits because there will be line edits or copy edits which is where you go through the grammatical stuff and spelling errors and typos and things like that which i think will be a lot easier because that's like there's no gray area there and no thought process it's just these are the things that you need to fix so that i can very easily do it's just with the big theme things i get overwhelmed easily and that was definitely my experience with edits was i was very overwhelmed for a while my anxiety was just like going off and i couldn't write but then i finally came to terms with it and i think that i did a pretty good job it's hard to tell that's the other thing it's very hard to tell if i'm fixing it because it's my own issues but i think that i did a pretty good job of fixing it and getting it into the best shape that i possibly could so we will see where we go from here if we do another round of thematical edits that's okay i'm totally fine with that because i want it to be the best it can possibly be before going off to publishers so a lot of you guys have been asking where do we go from here so basically what is going to happen is at least one more round of edits possibly two or more and then i go on submission which will basically be me just waiting and seeing if anyone wants to buy my book and publish it and hopefully they will want to but once again no guarantee so i'm going to dive into the q a now because i think most of the other things that i wanted to touch upon will be in these questions from what i remember seeing so the first question is what was the hardest part of the editing process so far and the hardest part was definitely just getting used to it i don't like editing it's just because i like to be creating something new and i like to move on to the next project when i'm done with one but i do recognize that it's absolutely necessary so i do put up with it but i think that having edits given to me and having such big things that needed to be fixed and not a specific easy fix for them it definitely wasn't an easy process and that was the hardest thing for me was coming to terms with it and not getting overwhelmed and realizing that it doesn't have to be perfect because i was kind of in my mind like this is my first round of edits like i have to perfect it and fix absolutely everything and make sure it's okay but if i don't really know how to fix something yet that's okay and we can go back and fix it later i just need to do the best that i possibly can to fix what i need to fix so coming to terms with the fact that it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect there are going to be more rounds of edits that was a hard thing and just not getting overwhelmed by all of it because it is a very overwhelming process what was it like editing for an agent and editor versus editing for yourself it was both harder and easier in a way i think it was better for me is what i'm trying to say because when i was editing for myself it's hard to see my own mistakes because i'm so familiar with the story and in my mind i know what i want it to be and it just is like out on the page so as i'm writing i just expect it to turn out how it is in my head and when i'm going back and reading it through and editing it was hard to pinpoint some mistakes and also like i said i didn't really know how to fix the mistakes that i knew were there so editing with an editor and agent was easier in a way because i was given more feedback from other people and more specifics so i knew what to look for and had someone to brainstorm with and bounce ideas off of so that was very helpful it was also harder because i had that accountability there and i had someone who i knew was going to be reading it and critiquing it afterwards and was looking for me to fix these things so there was definitely more pressure but i do think it was good pressure to have or else i can go easy on myself sometimes and i wasn't given the opportunity to do that and i think that was definitely good for me and the manuscript in the end what's a realistic timeline for steps going forward to publication i honestly have no clue i don't know when i will get feedback back about these edits because we're going into holidays now american thanksgiving is coming up and then christmas and everything so i wouldn't imagine that i will get any feedback until early 2020 and then from there it depends on how many more rounds of edits before we go on submission with publishers so i honestly have no clue when publication will be if there will be anything happening anyways but i will keep you guys posted as soon as i possibly can about those things how long is the book that is a very good question i have my laptop here i mean i didn't do my editing here i do it on my laptop so then i can go wherever i need to go like i did the majority of my edits at my boyfriend's house because no one was there and it was just a relaxing nice place to do it but this is a nice aesthetic setup so this is where we're sitting today so i am going to open up the draft and see what my draft ended up being because i don't remember so it ended up being 72 070 words so that is definitely up i think it was 62 000 when i finished it either the first time or my second draft i'm not entirely sure but it was nice to be able to add to it and not have to take away i think that adding is much easier especially because i'm just a creative person and i love the act of writing more than editing so being able to edit but also add things made the process much easier for me to handle how different was the initial first draft from the manuscript that you just edited or how much editing did you do altogether so it's very different because like i said i had to add a lot so i added in some flashbacks and that's something that like i'm not sure about but i felt like it added to the relationship because i don't want to go into my critiques just because i feel like that's like something just for me to know but i think that adding the flashbacks and adding i added a couple of chapters and i added a whole sort of plot line going on there i think that that definitely changed it so much from the first draft and i think it is a more well-developed story overall what were your favorite types of scenes slash parts to write so i in the editing process loved writing the flashback scenes i thought they were a lot of fun and it really brought me into the characters and i love my characters so that was awesome but overall i love writing the romance scenes they're some of my favorites like i'm just a sucker for it and finn as i told you guys is my favorite so that was really awesome and fun so those are all the questions that i'm going to answer today a couple of you guys asked some questions about querying and agents and stuff and i talked about that a lot in my last writing update so i will link that down below for you guys i talked about outlining and more specifics on twin travel novel in that as well so you can watch that i don't want to get too repetitive with these writing updates so i tried to kind of focus on the editing and drafting questions here but i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you guys are really excited for twin travel novel honestly editing it made me fall in love with it again every time i read it i fall in love with it and i don't know how to say that without like sounding narcissistic but i don't know i just feel like it's this beautiful baby that i've created and i hope so strongly that one day you guys will get to read it and we'll get to see it because i think that you guys will really love it and i hope you guys will love it as much as i do but it's been great working with an editor and agent and finally getting towards the steps to publication and that much closer like oh it's lovely so as much as i kind of complained about the editing process i'm very happy to be in the editing process because that means that we are getting somewhere with it so i will suck it up and edit as much as i need to if that means that one day you might be able to read this book also thank you guys so so much for your continued support with my writing and everything one of my favorite comments that i get is you guys saying that you want to read my book one day like it brings tears my eyes and makes me just so happy it means the world to me so if you guys did want to keep up with writing as well as reading and all of that stuff don't forget to click that subscribe button and then click that bell icon so you'll be notified whenever i post i post new videos twice a week but we are getting into bookmas so i will be posting a video every other day in december plus some bonus videos along the way so stay tuned for that you can also follow me on all of my social media all my links are down below i give a lot of writing updates there and stuff like that so thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in my next video very soon bye do\n"
