Learning Log Revisions

I'm now more than half-way through the second round of revisions of Learning Log, my didactic novel / business novel project. I thought I'd be really sick of it by now but instead of slowing down I've picked up the pace. It's not even so much that I want to reach the finish line faster, but I'm finding it useful to sit down with the manuscript every day instead of my previous routine of every other day. It helps to keep in the flow, remember details that need to be fixed, connect pieces previously disconnected.

This second round of revisions is turning out to be interesting in a number of ways.
1. I'm ignoring all the revision notes I had made during the first round of revisions. That may be a mistake but I was reading the manuscript in a different way at the time and my current read appears more useful.
2. I've been reading a lot of "how-to-revise-your-manuscript" materials and it is having a significant -- and hopefully positive -- impact on how I am editing. I have copies of Manuscript Makeover, by Elisabeth Lyon, and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King, as my guides.
3. I am coming up with small but relevant adjustments in the plot that reflect a deepening of my own thinking about the KM / didactic part of the plot. I have to watch that my protagonist doesn't get too smart. She doesn't have the benefit of the revision process.
4. I'm liking the story more and more, and getting a better understanding of how to talk about it and explain how it might be useful and to whom. I still need to work on that but I'm no longer at the point where I was thinking no one would ever be interested in reading it.
5. I am enjoying myself tremendously! I actually like revisions. Never thought I would. Perhaps it's because I'm starting to really believe in the final product.

I also decided NOT to put the whole manuscript on my website and instead to figure out the whole "agent + publishing business" thing. Can't hurt to try! I'm sure I'll learn something in the process. I plan on posting more about didactic fiction in general and how it connects with the current buzz around storytelling in business and as an activity related to knowledge management. It's all coming together now.

Can you tell from the list of links to my own blog entries below that I have been slightly obsessed with this for the past 7 months? Perhaps obsessed is the wrong word... passionate is more like it.

Question: Is citing your own blog entries equivalent to citing your own publications as references in an academic paper?

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THE END.

There's something very rewarding about writing "THE END." It's all about that moment when you know the piece you're writing is ESSENTIALLY DONE. The story has been put down on paper from beginning to end and it's readable. It may need some polishing and an additional round of revisions but it's essentially done. It's also the point when you have to make decisions about how much more needs to be done so that the work on it is FINISHED. Perhaps a piece of writing is never truly finished but continuous editing and revision is not something I could easily get used to. I need to be able to say something is FINISHED and move on to something else. It doesn't have to be perfect to be FINISHED.

I wrote "THE END" earlier this week when I completed the first round of revisions to the didactic novel I've been writing for the past 6 months. It felt really nice to get to that point. I am now entering unfamiliar territory since this is the first time I manage to complete a first round of revisions and still be interested in the manuscript. I'm looking at all my notes trying to figure out how to prioritize revisions.

What I really need now is to create the right incentives to complete the entire process. I know I'll complete the second round of revisions. I might get a little lazy and find excuses for calling it FINISHED sooner rather than later but I'll get to the point where I can call it FINISHED.

The real question is whether I'll actually ask anyone to read it and what to do with it once it is FINISHED. I don't think the process will really be completed if I just shelve it as a FINISHED project and never get it out for others to read.

This is how this blog is going to help me create the incentives to complete the process: The more I write about it here -- not just the writing process but the novel itself -- the more I build the necessary confidence to do something with it (... have someone read it).

So... here is a piece of information: The manuscript is titled "Learning Log -- A Didactic Novel about Knowledge Management, version 1.0". The "version 1.0" might suggest that I would consider making revisions to turn it into version 1.5 or 2.0. It's a possibility but mostly the "version 1.0" is there to indicate that while it is finished (it's not a beta), I still see the project as an experiment to learn from and not necessarily something that needs to be perfect. {a not so subtle attempt at lowering expectations}