It's been almost ten months in the making, but I'm very glad to be able to say that my next Jefferson Tayte story is written. Not only that, but I've also finished editing the first draft, and having only just read the book for the first time as a complete story, I must say that I'm very pleased with it. My first reader, Mrs R, is currently reading it, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she likes it, too. She may be my wife. but she 's a tough critic and knows how important it is to make the book as good as possible at this stage before I pass it on to my publisher and the structural editing begins.
So what's next? Well, tomorrow I'm going to give myself a break and go and play some golf, then we have friends visiting over the weekend, so on Monday I'll begin formatting the manuscript to make it ready to send to my editor. That involves compiling the scenes from Scrivener, which I use to write the story and to go through the first draft, into MS Word. Then I'll make sure it all looks okay and go through some basics, like spell checking and checking misplaced words, such as 'onto' when I meant 'on to' and 'isle' where I meant 'aisle'. I have a long list that I've gathered over the years and won't send an MS in until I've gone through it all, checking to see if I've fallen foul of any such errors. Then I'll go through a second draft, this time listening to the story as an audiobook, which I find helps me to create realistic dialogue, and spot missing words that my brain too easily fills in for me when I'm reading the words off my screen.
If you've been following my posts on my writing progress over the years, particularly on Facebook, you'll know that I dread the structural editing stage, which is basically where my editor tries to pull all my hard work apart an then asks me to fix it. At least, that's how it can seem, but it's a necessary and invaluable part of the process and one I wouldn't want to miss, however difficult it can be. It's the part where the story is made better. That means it's better for you when you read it, so although I dread it, I love it at the same time. Maybe that dread stems from the fact that I'm against the clock during each round of editing, particularly during the first round where I only have two weeks to find a solution to any points raised and implement them, which can be quite a challenge.
I'll be sure to let you know how it all goes, and as ever I can't wait to tell you more about it.
