Goodness, Hillsy! Working out the math, that says you've got a 197,000 word manuscript... That's quite a project. Since I keep hearing, time and again, that agents/editors tend to be nervous considering books of that length, could you split your novel into two? Then you only have 164 hours of editing. At least to complete the first volume.Hillsy wrote:Sanderling: 3500 per hour? I'm running at about 600...which means I'll need to put in.............Christ! 328 hours of editing! I may cry.....
Well, seems I'm not the slowest anyway. It's just the law of diminishing returns: I was worried I was spending too much time adjusting sentances for no more reason than, well, I can (and of course I think they look better purely because they are new). Anyways.....back to the edit.
At a writing conference I attended last year, Robert J Sawyer gave the lunchtime address. He talked about Heinlein's Rules, which I hadn't heard of prior to his speech. It was the single most inspiring thing from that conference (and indeed much of my writing life so far) and I've got a copy taped to the wall behind my desk where I can remind myself of it. (See my signature for a link to Sawyer's version of the Rules.)
One of the things he said in the address (he unfortunately uses different words on the webpage) is that when tackling edits/revisions it's often hard to know when you're done. It's easy to keep going, tweaking sentences and paragraphs. But his suggestion was that if you find yourself looking at the changes and rather than saying "yes, that's definitely better" you're saying "well, it's different... I think it's better?" you're done with the editing. From that point on you're fiddling, not improving. Sawyer reworded Heinlein's third rule to be: "Don't tinker endlessly with your story."
That may not have been what you were getting at, but perhaps it'll be helpful anyway.
