A Good Ole-Fashioned Novel Revision Update
Notes from my agent and grappling with self made deadlines
It has been a long time since I’ve written a novel revision update! To be fair, the last few months have been somewhat grueling as I make my way again (!!) through my novel draft, and it's taking all I have left to write this (lol).
Each revision of my novel has felt different. Each time, I peel back another layer, get closer to the heart, see the story as a whole, colored in and sculpted.
But this time around, I’m working with an agent. It's been a huge blessing because I worked really hard to find her, and I feel so fortunate that I was able to sign with CAA in September. We have now begun the process of shaping my book together.
A few weeks after signing, my agent sent me her editorial notes—a whopping six pages single-spaced that nearly knocked me off my feet. In our initial call back in August, we had discussed some of her suggestions to make sure we were a good fit for each other, so I knew bits and pieces of what her suggestion might be. But her breakdown left me a little dizzy with excitement and dread.
I really appreciate the way she broke down her thoughts. She essentially gave me six or so categories (like setting, my main character, my main character and her mother, etc.) and outlined what could be clarified, reworked, or shaped differently. The main edits were in the beginning of the novel (if you have been here awhile, you know that factor was the real reason for my dizziness) and the chain of events that conclude the novel.
I did my best to process. I called Tamar (obviously—she’s my writing partner if you are new here), vented to my husband, and paced my apartment. I read her notes and took my own notes on her main points. I scheduled a phone call with her.
This is truly the best part about having an agent—so far, anyway. I’m a talker. I need to talk everything out, go over each possible solution, and break it all down verbally. In our hour-and-a-half phone conversation, I was able to do that and have someone on the other end listen and strategize with me—someone who knows how to sell a book.
I left the phone call feeling invigorated and a lot less anxious.
What I’ve Done So Far
My first step was to write an outline of Act One. As I mentioned, these pages needed to be edited and shaped for pacing or to make sure the reader was getting all the right information in these critical first 50 pages. I did not do much outlining while I drafted this book, but since this is draft 8 or 9 (who is counting), I know my story through and through. An outline was actually the perfect way for me to organize my thoughts, see how the story could look, and give my agent something to bounce ideas off of.
I took about a week to write the outline and then sent it to her. She replied very quickly with her initial thoughts and questions. Then I was on my way— back to my desk to edit.
Revising Act One took me about 2.5 weeks of working almost daily. I put a lot of my responsibilities aside as best as I could to make sure I was able to have longer working sessions. While the early stages of drafting came in whatever bursts of writing I could afford, this edit requires me to be in novel mode for two or more hours at a time if I can swing it. I wrote on weekends, at night— whenever I could.
While my agent read those pages, I kept moving forward. I heard from her a few weeks later, and she left a number of comments on my Act One draft. Again, we scheduled a phone call and talked about what could be tightened and cut, and reworked.
After getting her feedback, I didn’t want to go back to the beginning, so I made a bunch of notes and kept moving through the draft. When I passed the middle, however, I started to panic.
A lot of my agent's initial notes in that six pager were about the chain of events that bring the book to a close. A lot happens in those last 75 or 100 pages and I wanted to make sure I was being as methodical as possible about how to proceed. I spent a few days trying to get an outline together since that was so helpful in Act One. But I started to spiral, scared that if I emailed my agent again with all this uncertainty, she might regret signing with me. Or she might think I don’t have what it takes to write this book.
But after talking with Tamar and calming down, I knew that was ridiculous—she had made it clear from the start that she was always open to communicating with me.
I wrote a rough outline for the mid to ending of the book and told her I was feeling a little stressed. Am I on the right path? I asked.
When she replied, she was very reassuring and posed a number of questions that made everything click for me. They were slightly bigger changes that I was hoping for, but the more I dwelled on the story and meditated on these new scenes or the new lines of dialogue I would be writing, the more it felt like the story was being shaded in, further and further.
Where I am now
I have made it through the entire draft and have since printed it out. Right now, I have been reading the physical copy while taking chapter-by-chapter notes on exactly what needs to be edited when I get back in.
As I said, I want to be methodical. This doesn’t feel like a time where I want to make a little red star near a paragraph and see where the inspiration takes me. No, I need to know exactly what is going where. I have a word document divided up for all 26 chapters so I can easily get to each page of notes for the rewrite. There have been a few chapters where I can write NO BIG EDITS HERE, and that, my friends, is a great feeling.
Next steps
After I finish reading the book in its entirety, I will go back into the draft to make all those red penned changes. I’m hoping I will be able to do this by the end of next week, if not the week before Christmas. That will bring me to a complete novel overhaul, having been done in three months. I’m happy with this process, even if its a little longer than I hoped.
I wrote a Note the other day about missing my self-made deadline. This deadline allowed me to prioritize this novel work, which, of course, is the point. But it can still sting when that deadline is missed. I badly wanted to have it all done and sent by the beginning of December. But at this point in my process, I want my manuscript to be as polished as possible. I want my agent to have much fewer notes for me than last time. I want to take this book out on submission.
So, with that in mind, I do not see this missed deadline as failure. No— far from it. Even at this stage, process is still the point. Every day, I’m making this book better, more authentic, more true to the story's soul. If that means taking extra time, I need to accept that.
And so I keep working.
What else is going on
Did you notice my new logo?! Maya Lekarczyk is the artist behind this graphic and the one on my About page, and I love them so much! <3
We are killing it over on the 90 Day Novel challenge in the subscriber chat! So many of you are checking in daily with me and sharing your word count and its’s amazing. We are truly all working together and I’m so thrilled to be hosting this challenge.
If you want to join us, you can jump in at any time if you need accountability or want some comradery. (more info here)
I’m also trying my hand at TikTok and posting some of my favorite writing tips and revision updates, and I’d love for you to follow me if that is your thing :)
I made a shorter version of this revision update recently!
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Also! My writing partner,
, and I are hosting a special edition of our Write Together Retreats with Write or Die magazine in January! We are calling it the Tell All because we are going to do just that. In addition to craved out time to write together over Zoom, we are hosting a craft chat where we will talk about developing a writing routine, how we actually wrote the draft of our novels, how we approached revision, what it was like working as a partnership, querying our novels and more! I’d love to see you there, and c’mon, you’ve been reading about Tamar for over a year now— you have to meet her!
Very insightful, Kailey! Good luck!
Love this post. I’m almost done with the first draft of my novel, and reading this is like (hopefully) looking into my future. Just 8 rounds of revision and an entire query process to go…