Ever since I had a R and R (revise and resubmit) offer
from an editor last month, I have been on cloud nine. With that editor’s
insightful and helpful feedback, I have attacked my manuscript with gusto and am
revising it with a whole lot of enthusiasm. When you know what exactly to fix
in your story, revisions become a cakewalk.
Infact, after that particular editor’s comments on one
manuscript, I’m rewriting all my stories from the past one month. You can even
say that I’m on a revising old manuscripts road trip. I’ve literally pulled out
all my earlier written work: be it
middle grade or picture books, and am tweaking them slowly, chapter by chapter.
The result is pretty decent (atleast I think so).
I feel that it’s not just important for writers to
write more and more, but also to go back, atleast once, and rework/rewrite previously
written stories. As the more we write and read other people’s books, the more
we can see the faults in our own work. With this new writing wisdom, it becomes
easier to tackle and revamp older manuscripts which now occupy space inside our
laptops.
I tweaked two picture books a couple of days back and
sent it to an editor and hopefully the middle grade manuscript too will leave
my computer by the end of the month.
Do you revisit your previously written stories? Or do
you forget about them and move on to the newer ones?
