Three steps to Re-Writing

So you've finished your first book!!! Congratulations, now it is time to go to work to make it something worth publishing.

I thought when I finished my first NaNoWriMo that I had a book that was ready to publish! All I needed  were these three steps to re-writing.

1. Grammar and spelling edits.
2.Send it to a few beta readers
3. Perhaps, I would need to re-write a scene or two. Add a few words here or there and wusssh... off to the Literary Agent I would send it.

Quick, someone pat me on the head and say, "Bless its goofy little heart."

Ernest Heming way said "First drafts are $hit." EDIT

I am learning that editing is not a simple matter of grammar and spelling.
Yes, I did have to learn that. I am not an intuitive learner. I need it written on the page.

What did I learn about my first twelve pages?
I can't write action scenes.
     The lines need to be short and crisp.
 
     I have a tendency to yank the reaction away from the action. In other words,  what is need is for me to tell and then react. Not react while the action is being told.
 
     POV (Point of View) is hard to write. Somehow, what I was seeing in my head was not coming across on the page. One way to do this is to make the main character express the emotion. (Not everyone is supposed to express emotion? I don't know. I am still working on that concept.)
 
     Strong images need strong description words.
     Some words are children words and some words are used for adult understanding. Back to the strong description words.
    
     I end a lot of my sentences in a preposition. Bad, bad, bad.
    
     I repeat myself a lot. Did I say that I repeat my self a lot. Not like that but, I use the same word over and over again. Jump is one of my key words. Jumped up, jumped off, jumped on. Jumped in. There is a great quantity of words that can be substituted for jump. Who knew? Sadly, jump is not my only repetitive word. Back is a favorite of mine also. He ran back. He came back. The back of (something). This might be a hard thing to break myself from, but I am going to try so I don't have to re-write so much.
    
     The words "trying to" are almost never necessary. Like the word almost; either it is, or it is not.
    
     Words that end in "ed" are stronger than was "ing" words.  He was pulling / He tugged,
He was sitting/ He sat is another example of a stronger word pair. How did I miss this concept in grade school grammar?
   
About grammar in general:
     Know when to chaptalize words like mother, father, doctor, post master.
    
     How to write dialog. What to do with question punctuation in dialog. What is strong dialog. What is boring dialog. I am not a brilliant conversationalist.
     Don't use big words when a smaller word will do. (See sentence above.)
    
     Internal dialog is shown in italics without a name tag. The dialog is stronger if you show emotion before you write the internal dialog.

All these things needed to be addressed in the first eight pages. The other four pages got little or no comment.
I learned a lot in eight short pages of action and dialog.

Please comment. I would love to hear what you think about first drafts, re-writing, or writing in general. If you have any questions about Pitching a Literary Agent, I can give you my experience.
   

Disappointment and Hope Wrapped Together in a Critique

I had the great joy of being asked for a sample chapter of my book, at the last Writers Conference/ Workshop that I attended in September.

I sent three chapters and the Literary Agent critiqued twelve pages.

I am deeply grateful for the Literary Agent's time and effort. That being said, I cried for an hour. 

Then I pulled myself together and reread the critique. 

It is stunning that I am such a poor writer. I am more amazed at my inability to express myself coherently.

What do I do now? I can't throw up my hands and give up.

I need to learn how to write. I need to understand about structure.

And my grammar is horrible. 

Classes? A critique group? Both probably. 

I love Microsoft Word it never ever ever eats a Word file unless....

Unless you update the program, like I did yesterday.
I edited seven chapters and then rewrote chapter 17.
I had slipped into head hopping so I knew I needed to rewrite it.
I did the hard work. I threw out stuff I could not reasonably rewrite and I rewrote the whole chapter.

Yesterday afternoon, I got this cute little pop-up message on Microsoft Word telling me that it need to update.
When I finished for the day, I closed everything. I save before I close even with auto save enabled.
I was so very careful because I knew that I had rewritten a whole chapter. I saved the original chapter under a different name.
I did not lose the saved original chapter but I lost all of yesterdays edits and the chapter rewrite.

Today, I did the edits again. Now I am procrastinating rewriting chapter 17 by complaining.
Yes, I did a web search on ways to possibly recover my work. Nothing I could do would bring it back.

Now I will rewrite chapter 17 one again.
Pray for me!