IWSG: It's Huge

I got to the point last month where I think I lost faith in my ms. The closer I got to finishing the edits, the more intimidating the whole thing became. And then I did something I'd never done before. I printed the whole document out (minus the last chapter which is still in the hands of my editor). It took several minutes to print the 350 page document and when it was done, I just looked at it (0_0) not sure what the hell to do next. I'd never seen this much of my ms in physical print before and kept thinking, "It's HUGE."

So after the initial shock wore off and a glass of...never mind, I decided I better do something with it since a few hundred trees  sacrificed their lives to birth my first draft. Cue the heavy artillery: pens of varying colors, music,  and lots and lots of colored sticky notes. I started by tagging each chapter, realized I stopped chapter headings at 16 for no apparent reason, and then began to reread from the begining. It's amazing the things that catch your attention when you read your ms on a different medium. It's not the same and that got me excited again. And when I get excited, I set goals for myself. I did this last month with mixed results (read: total disaster). But now the kids are back in school and my theory is I should have enough time to yield better results by the end of September. Right? Absolutely.

September goals:

1. Finish making all minor adjustments to ms
2. Finish editing the last chapter as soon as I get feedback (4 days to complete edits tops)
3. RUN 3 times / week Plus 1 hour / week of Sport Chanbara (I'll be taking my first Chanbara class tomorrow evening so send me some positive vibes and pain killers and hope to make it out alive... :P  )
4. Finish revising my practice query letter (possibly send it to Matthew for a critique at the QQQE....maybe....I'm such a cluck, cluck, chicken)
5. Send completed second draft to my editor who I'm convinced has super powers  
6. Read, read, read. (I totally fell behind on reading last month. Part of it was traveling and part of it was reading e-books on my computer which is a pain, literally.) 
7. Keep visiting blogs, and posting 3 times / week
8. Get to sleep by 1 am. I'm bumping this up an hour from last month because I'm exhausted.

Well, there it is. 

September, bring in on like Donkey Kong!

I told you it was huge.
Also, tub of Nutella not pictured.