The 25th was my birthday. I celebrated by starting the first chapter of my second book titled The Eternal Gateway: Guardian, and a nice dinner and fun with some friends.
Book one is still floating in limbo it seems and with the holiday weekend and Western Days following it I don't see it moving forward. I find it frustrating with all the excess time it takes with editing and such. There is way too much 'hurry up and wait' involved.
I still think the most important part of a book is getting it written. However getting what needs to be done after should be planned as soon as the writing starts. For example, it took me 5 weeks when I finally sat down and wrote Requiem. It was finished on April 28th. I handed out 5 copies for red line editing. Looking for punctuation, syntax, wrong words that were spelled right that the computer missed etc. I can't complain honestly as this is only costing me time and my budget is low. One copy I received back fairly quickly. Under 5 days, but the reader after chapter 6 quit marking mistakes and got too caught up in the story... Another I got back after 70 pages were looked at was all.
About a week and a half went by before I got a complete edit back. I spent the next 3 days applying the edits and a week later I spent another 3 days going over the new version and did a reading. Basically I sat for 14 hours or so and read my story out loud and whenever there was a hiccup, we stopped and corrected it. It was mind blowing how many corrections and adjustments were made on the second run through. But the book is a 100 times better than what it was at the end of April. I feel that it still needs one more going over and it will be print ready but I am having problems finding someone who can do it. For free lol.
Two of the first copies that I handed out, have yet to be finished and returned. I guess my point is that I am frustrated with the parts of writing a book that I cannot do myself.
Another point of frustration is the book cover. I don't have the programs or skill to do it properly myself and to have it hired out will break the budget I have set for this. I have looked around and the cost for a cover is $800-$2500. Poo on that.
-----------------------
Knowing what I do now, and what I plan to do while I write book 2 is about every 50 typed pages, I hand it out for the first red line edit. When I get it back, it will just sit there until the book is finished. The prime directive of book writing is to get it done, if you stop and go back you are in edit mode not writing mode. But it will allow me to immediately start on applying edits while I wait a day or three for the last bit is being edited. It should put me on the second edit of the book a week after finishing the manuscript, compared to 3+ weeks it took this go around. This also lets me use my editing sources more efficiently. I can only get one good run through with a person before they know the story and objectively edit. Like myself, once you are familiar with it, your brain automatically starts to overlook mistakes.
Also starting work on the book cover as soon as the writing starts. I lost a good 2-3 weeks of time with the book cover because the model who agreed to help up and quit w/o notice or reason. So I wasted another 10 days after getting it set up trying to get a hold of her to reschedule before moving on.
In the end though, it was a good birthday and frustrations aside, I am happy with my book and progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment