Mitzi Flyte

When do you stop the editing/revision process?
That’s what I’m asking myself these days.
It’s not as if this book, The Guardian Prophecy, hasn’t been around a long time. It’s seen several rebirths. In fact a couple of the first scenes are a decade old. Can you say “recycle”?
So if it’s been worked on for that long, how much more work could it need?
Lots, I think, every time I reread a page, a chapter, the entire manuscript.
But I’m not the same person I was when I first started this book, when I first thought of writing a retelling of the werewolf legend.
Eileen Charbonneau once said, “You never stick your toe in the same stream twice.” In other words, the stream keeps moving. The writer keeps moving, growing, changing, improving…I hope.
I’m not the same person who originally wrote: “She’d chosen the moon of frozen water as her time to die.” That was the first sentence of the prologue, the book’s first sentence.
I’ve recently changed that with an addition, well, really a moving around of other material.
It’s hard to explain. The story centers around a reincarnation prophecy so there are different lives and time periods to be played with and worked in without confusing the reader.
Now I need to look at this manuscript as the reader.
Does it make sense?
Does the story flow?
Are the characters sympathetic?
Do I want to keep turning the pages?
Would I want to read more from this author?
Back to the manuscript–one more time and the on to something new.