So my resolution to wait two months before editing lasted . . . 43 hours. Oh well.

First up was running through my scene synopses from start to finish, checking for flaws or holes in the main plot arc.

(A note on synopses: as I’ve been drafting, I’ve written a one-sentence summary of every scene as I finish it. The index cards on the Scrivener corkboard – see here for previous on this – make this an absolute doddle. But I digress.)

As I’d hoped, I hadn’t missed any major elements – and all of the scenes were in the right order!

Now underway is the big first read through. Two main goals here: cutting dead wood, and getting a feel for whether the plot and character arcs hang together. This is just a first pass: I’ll go through again in more detail for each character in future edits.

(Another Scrivener aside: you can add tags to scenes or chapters, then filter on them and only display scenes with those tags. I’ve got tags for each of my POVs, so I can filter by each and read all the scenes from that character’s POV one after another, and check the voice is consistent. Clever stuff, no?)

So – edit is go go go. But I have absolutely no idea how long this process is going to take. Why not put your guesses in the comments? Three weeks? Four months? Two years? Closest to the final total wins a mystery prize!

(If it ends up taking two years, the prize may well be a jar of my tears and a bag of all the hair I’ve torn out. Be warned.)