I know some of you have been enjoying my Monday lists, but I’m feeling a bit, um, listless about them right now. And since this is my blog and I’ll cry if I want to, I thought I’d explore another topic. Welcome to Manuscript Monday, where I share thoughts about my writing journey.

I had no idea what I was getting into when Dutton contracted me to write TMI (scroll down to “How did you become a writer?” for more details about this). When my editor spoke of drafts and revisions, I imagined a process similar to writing college papers, only with more words. I’d do a first draft, get feedback, make a few changes, and then polish up the grammar and punctuation. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I wasn’t at all daunted by the task.

The experience of writing and revising TMI behind me, I was seriously daunted when I began working on my new novel. I knew how much work was in front of me. I knew that thousands and thousands of the words I wrote would never make it to the printed page.

The word count on my first draft of TMI was 101,835. The final draft? 76,167. These numbers don’t take into account all of the new material I wrote for each draft, which means that I cut more than 25,000 words during the revision process. If memory serves, I nixed at least fifty pages on the final draft and added seventy new ones.

TMI’s final word count is on the high side for a young adult novel; not counting sagas like Twilight and Harry Potter, most YA novels hover around 60,000-75,000 words. If I could go back in time and do another round of revisions on TMI, I would. That’s not to say I’m not proud of it as is. But like most authors, I see things that could have been better and things that probably should have been left out.

So how am I doing right now? The first draft of my new book was 68,600 words. I’m now about a quarter of the way through revising, and I’ve cut over 10,000 words and added at least 5,000 new ones. The book is going in a different direction than I’d originally planned, and I’m pleased about it. I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a writer in the last few months. I’m not nearly as attached to my words as I used to be. I’ve taken out scenes that were funny and interesting but don’t ultimately move the story along or show the main character’s development.

Those scenes end up in the “Scraps” folder. Occasionally, I’ll go back and rescue a few sentences or paragraphs, but I know that most of those carefully crafted scenes will remain on the cutting room floor. And I’m okay with that. It’s part of the process, and frankly, I’m beginning to really enjoy it. It’s freeing to realize that something isn’t working and that I have the power to change it.