Friday Five - Like a Love Song, Wii Dance, and Revisions

1. I - I love you like a love song, baby. And I keep hittin' repeatpeatpeatpeatpeat. Oh, Selena Gomez. The first time I heard this song, I didn't get it. At all.

2. But it kept coming up on Just Dance 4 for the Wii (we won the Wii in a raffle at a benefit!), and suddenly I was addicted. I am determined to get a perfect score on this song, as well as Call Me Maybe, and Maneater. But I am a terrible dancer. It's still fun though!

3. My revisions are done and turned in to my editor! The changes weren't TOO major, but they took some time, and I'm pretty happy with the result. So now I wait. I'm getting good at the waiting.

4. Anyone watching The Voice this season? We skipped the last couple seasons, but with the judge switches, we decided to give it a shot and we're hooked! Blake is hilarious as always and there is some serious talent out there! I already bought Savannah Berry's version of Safe & Sound (she's from Houston, y'all!) and I have my eye on a few others.

5. Some of you may remember my 2013 good eating/fitness goal I set in January, and I did really really good! .... until my book deal. And I admittedly have done a little too much celebrating. And once you taste that sugar, it's hard to knock it again. BUT I've joined a DietBet for April and I'm getting back on track! How are your goals going this year?

Revisions: Round 1 - COMPLETE

So I've been MIA from the blogging world, but I have a good excuse. I'm pretty much a zombie as I type up this post (Sunday evening). I've been nonstop reading my pretty spiral bound copy of my WIP, scribbling notes in it, and scratching out the most ridiculous sentences I've ever seen since Thursday. But round one is DONE!

I like this method because the first round is a physical copy that I make actual physical notes. I get to slash through things with markers and mark things with stickies. I found things I forgot about, things I don't even remember writing in the first place, some things that made me scratch my chin and say WOW, I WROTE THAT? in a good way, and in an omg that's awful way too.

Now this week, I'll go back through all my pretty notes (and by pretty I mean so messy I can barely read my own writing and follow all my arrows) and implement these changes in the actual document on the computer, thus becoming the SECOND round of revisions as I read through everything again. I actually can't wait for this one. I'm hoping I cut out as much as I think I did.

How do you handle revisions? Do you do it all on the computer, or do you like to print it out and get messy with a hard copy like I do?

And so it begins... the first revision.

REVISIONS REVISIONS REVISIONS. How intimidating are you? You make me anxious. You make me sick to my stomach. You steal my brain from me when I'm supposed to be working (you know, the kind that actually pays me for my time). You make my leg bounce up and down any time I'm seated. You draw me to the computer only to sit and stare at the screen without accomplishing anything because you. scare. the. mess. out. of. me.

I will say that changing two characters names throughout the entire manuscript in three seconds by the click of a button was a REALLY cool feeling! Wish I'd thought of these names sooner though because I adore them. :)

I have a few things I want to clean up toward the end of the book before looking at the beginning and finding the real place it's supposed to start. So I've been trying to repair a scene that's been determined to be ridiculous, but then it made me think of a scene a few chapters later and I hopped to that one instead thinking it would be a quick fix... it's not. So now I have two scenes torn apart and bleeding. How do you keep yourself focused on one thing at a time? Are you systematic in your revisions, or do you hop around until it all gets done?

I think I need a game plan. I'm just not sure what it is yet. But there will be chocolate.