It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! Sorry, I’m a bit excited.
I got the final edits from my editor over the weekend after what felt like a few days short of eternity. Now that I’ve seen the complete edits, I understand why they took so long. To say that Word’s “Track Changes” contained a lot of red would be a drastic understatement. There was red everywhere — and not just grammatical or spelling corrections, but a lot of story critique which was exactly what I wanted (and needed!)
As of yesterday, I’ve started plowing through the edits. Slashing chapters, merging paragraphs, and destroying my overuse of negativity.
One of the most helpful things in the entire editing process was Lauren’s summary. She pointed out a bunch of flaws with the story, the characters, and my writing habits. Most of which I’ve been oblivious to. Having other people read the book has definitely been helpful, but having an editor read the book and point out what I’m doing wrong has been infinitely helpful.
I’ve enjoyed reading the comments, too. It hasn’t all been negative (which I sort of feared, from the get-go) and some of the comments have been inspiring. For the first time in a number of months, I’m feeling positive about this whole decision.
According to my notes, I started writing A Sour Chord on March 5th, 2013. Just over 11 months ago. My goal is to finish editing and be completely done with all of the rewrites I’ve got laid out for me by that same date of this year. Thus making the entire process take exactly a year.
After that I just have to have some cover art designed and then publish the book to the various places I plan on selling it. (Amazon, iTunes and Barnes & Noble, to start.) I don’t expect much in the way of sales, but hopefully someone somewhere will read it and enjoy it.
I’ve said from the get go — I’m not in this to be famous or make a zillion dollars. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do and see through to completion. It’s a bucket list item, if you will. And I’m glad I’m going to finish it.
