Revision 2 is Under Way!

Revision 1 of my middle grade novel Black, White, and Shades of Gray is currently in the hands of Penguin Books Australia being considered. I have heard a smattering of comments from over there that the first person who read it (Our Australian exchange student Sam's mum) really really liked it. I found the second "really" to be encouraging. :)

The last I heard, my novel had been passed up to the associate publisher of children's literature there, and that once she was finished with it, it would be going to a senior editor.

I decided that while I am waiting for their yea or nay, that I would press on with my next planned revision. I hadn't wanted to begin the querying process until after revision2 was completed, but this opportunity presented itself, and I had to act on it.

My main goal in this revision is to polish and expand. I have written a program that counts the number of words as well as flags -ly and -ing words for me. I put this to good use last night and discovered that although I preach against overuse of -ly and -ing words, I had quite a lot to deal with.

My program also showed me a big imbalance in chapter lengths. I have some chapters over 2100 words, where others are just over 300.

Shortly before handing my manuscript to Sam to take home, I had broken up a couple chapters with the intention of expanding those areas. That accounts for some of the shorter chapters. So anyway, my task is to clean up the adverbs and gerunds, and flesh out the short chapters.

WOO HOO!