Finished! But wait, there's more

I finished the massive rewrite I undertook on my YA Fantasy, bringing it in at 82K and 25 chapters. See before the rewrite I'd gone to this fabulous website called Absolute Write or AW, where the very best critiquers eat, sleep and live, who gently informed me that I didn't have a story. And after swallowing that one down with a little bit of ice cream and cake I determined that yes indeed, they were right. My main character didn't have a purpose. He didn't have something to do other than live through it and that just wasn't good enough. So I wrote him a shiny new story and gave him a huge purpose, a couple of obstacles to test his mettle and I managed to retain the original scope, themes and basic story line of the original while I toiled away.

Now onto the 'wait there's more' part. There's always more, isn't there?

The last two chapters were torture to write, probably because sleep deprivation makes it hard to think straight much less write well. Maybe it was the idea that I was almost finished that slowed me down. I got there after many days of staring at a blank page and eating more ice cream than is a good for me.

And now I have to...here it comes....edit.

Cutting, trimming, tossing out the extraneous bs that ends up between the important stuff is not a lot of fun, but a necessary self-check. Editing is the polishing cloth you put to the silver to rub off the tarnish that's obscuring your brilliant prose. I'm going to try and keep that in mind as I juggle the day job, the kids, the house, the bills, pets who pee on the floor, life, etc., while I make this baby shine. I hope it's more fun than the last two chapters.