Continued from Part 1…

After receiving much helpful feedback on my novel from agents, I had many questions to consider:

Should I keep querying and hope another agent would accept the original manuscript? Or should I do an extensive edit?

If I were to edit, how much would I change? Which of the agents’ suggestions would I adhere to, and which would sacrifice too much of my intent? Now that I had more distance from the project, what kinds of changes did I personally want to make?

How would I approach the edit? Did I need to do prep work such as more in-depth character studies or a stronger plot outline? Did I want to change the format completely?

If I were to keep querying, would I ever find the “right” agent?

And, the most important question: if I did find an agent, and the book isn’t as good as it could be, do I really want to sell it?

The final question was the one that sealed the deal for me. I had the knowledge and perspective that time away from writing the novel had given me, along with suggestions from industry insiders. I knew that I could make this book even better than I’d originally thought. I couldn’t try to sell the original draft now that I had a vision of a better version in my mind.

So just after Christmas this past year, I began my tenth draft.

There were a few false starts. I knew I wanted to change the point of view from first person to third person close. I naively supposed that I could do this fairly easily by referencing my previous manuscript and simply changing the words. But the act of writing took me in some new directions. As I worked, I found some characters coming out of the woodwork, and some receding. I discovered new relationships between characters, including a vein of homosexual tension that hadn’t existed in the first version, and a love triangle I’d only hinted at. A few weeks into the re-write, I had to stop and do some character soul-searching. It had been a long time since I’d been in their heads, and I needed to re-identify with them. I did it with some help from MBTI, by “interviewing” my characters, and by assigning them each a piece of music that symbolized their emotions (music is my first language). I also had to do some additional research on the time period in order to re-orient myself in 1908 New York City. But finally, I was ready to start again.

I’m now mid-way through my second of three acts (another change I’ve made, re-structuring the book into parts). Things are going well. I’m positive that this re-write was the right move, and I’m starting to share it with agents, including the one who requested my re-submission. I haven’t heard back from anyone yet, but I’m not worried. I feel confident that this time, Waist will find a home. If I got agent reactions with the first version, I know I’ll get them with this one. I’m a better writer now. I’m a better planner. And I know my subject very, very well.

I’m glad I’m doing the re-write. But I have to be honest: I also want to be done! I have two other books I’m excited to get started on, and I don’t have the time until Waist is wrapped. I’m making progress every day (I track my word count using the app Writing Journal) but I still have a long way to go.

Writing (and re-writing) is a marathon sport.