What a novel idea

For the past *cough* years I have been busy writing my novel, as well as raising a family and being a stay-at-home dad.  Turns out being a stay-at-home dad is still a lot of work.  But I've managed to finish the novel and get through several rounds of edits!

At the moment I am finishing up the most major round of edits yet.  These are the edits that respond to what my critiquing group said about the novel.  Of course I'm not taking every suggestion; it is my novel, after all, not theirs.  But for the most part these are good suggestions and I feel the novel is much stronger now.

The problem is, I am in chapter 30 of 34 in these edits.  And I have learned something about writing a novel.

Edits are like snowballs.  They might start out small, but by the end of the novel, they can be a hassle to deal with.  If you start off with big edits, it's going to be quite a job rewriting the last few chapters to make sure everything fits the way it should.

I just finished a very difficult conversation in the novel, but I don't know if it's good or not.  I can't really tell.  I usually have good dialogue, but at this point I'm just going to rely on that and push forward.  The next chapter is going to be another major rewrite.  Then, I FINALLY will be past the hardest parts.  Once I am past 31, 32-34 should be relative smooth sailing!

And then the hard part begins.  Publication.