Fast Edits

At this moment, I’m going crazy participating in Savvy Author’s Editpalooza.  I picked an old draft from NaNoWriMo 2010. While not officially complete, there is enough material to finish it once I iron out the trouble spots. The problem is those spots after the first three chapters. It's  going to be painful to work through it in one month, but I’m willing to learn how to edit fast.

I haven’t touched the draft since that NaNo, so it opened my eyes to my three main problems:

1.  A classic moment of pantsing. It started great, and then it went downhill after my main character left home. The original idea devolved quickly, and the scenes shifted  my original ideas. The plot left in the fifth chapter and never returned.
2. I hate my characters.
3. Somehow my novel turned into a fantasy romance novel instead of a high fantasy novel.

Unfortunately, approaching writing as a pantser can spell doom when you realize there isn’t much to work with. I wrote 71k, but how many good words are there? If I’m lucky, probably not more than 20k. I lost touch with the reality of the world I created. It’s painful to read and more painful knowing I wrote it. The first draft is meant to be this way, but I still didn’t want to believe it. Yet, I accept them to move forward.

Participating in Editpalooza isn’t going to allow me to think long and hard. The push to finish the next assignment is pressing against my forehead. Now they said, each assignment may take longer than others. I’m treating this event as a request from a real editor. If you want your book published on time, then you must meet the deadline. If I want a good 2^nd draft, then I will work hard to complete it by the end of the event.

How about you? Do you think you can edit fast?