I feel good today. I went to bed last night at a reasonable hour. I haven't gone back to bed, either.
Yesterday, I did. I was really tired. I slept until almost noon. I'm sure I'd have reached me word count goal if I had stayed up.
I was close, though. My word count goal was just under 10,400. I got 9471 for a total of 20,834. Today, if I'm on track, I should break 29k. That's my goal. The hubby and I are going to a movie tonight, so I'll have to stay focused this morning.
The rewrite of Part 2 is going well. I'm through chapter 8. I love these chapters. When you're stuck in the middle or the end of a rewrite, you sometimes forget what happened in the earlier chapters. It's good stuff.
I don't have too much to report. I'm just chuggin' along. I've made a few changes, but not major ones, only a word here or there, or changing up the sentence. NO major moves or deletes. Of course, it still has to pass the reading-aloud test and then the editor, but I think we're doing well here.
I'll check in tomorrow. Have a good day!
Showing posts with label editor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editor. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2016
Friday, September 30, 2016
September 30, 2016
Happy last day of September.
I talked yesterday about how I wanted to be done rewriting the fifth draft of Part 2 by today and that I was disappointed that I won't make it. So, last night I sat down with my writing calendar for the next six months (yes, I have it planned out that far). Based on the progress and hurdles Part 1 has presented, I set an approximate publish date for Part 2 and worked backwards. Based on that, I have rewrites for Part 2 into Part 3 scheduled to end on October 12th. I want to work into Part 3 so the book parts flow together. However, I also sat down and counted approximately how many more chapters I'm going to need for Part 2. Currently, I have twenty more. I approximate I'll have to write five additional new chapters to round out what I've started. That brings Part 2 to a really nice and natural cliffhanger.
Side note: I was amazed as I wrote the first draft for part 2 that it just naturally came to this closing. When I sat down with the second draft, I made some major changes and I had a completely different ending in mind. Once again, it came naturally to the climax I had before. Well, I can't fight that. That's the ending. The second ending I had in mind has now become the ending of Part 3 and it works nicely, actually.
Anyway, that leaves me thirteen days to get Part 2 rewritten. So, I need to get two chapters done a day. That's do-able. But, I'd like it if I got into Part 3 by then so, I'm aiming for three chapters a day. That's still workable, I think.
The corrections for Part 1 are going. I sat down and took a hard look at what I'm correcting. I've begun another edit is what I've done. Last night, I finished repairing the corrections through chapter 10. I counted 71 things I changed. Going through it again, only 26 of those were grammatical or spelling type issues. The majority of the issues that NEED fixing are hyphens vs em dashes. Some of them didn't auto-correct in Word. Well, there's a formatting reason for that. In order to upload my manuscript for e-book, I have to have auto-correct off, which means I have to go through and paste in a symbol. Not a big deal, just takes time. I have caught a handful of spelling issues and once where I had two verbs and once where I had completely lost a word.
But, I need to turn the editor in me off. 2/3 of the corrections I made last night weren't necessary. The sentence was fine without the correction, I just thought it might sound better if I changed it. It's not a totally offensive thing to do, but I need to let it go, especially if the sentence is just fine the way it is.
So, I'm reading no more than three chapters a day to catch proofreading errors. I don't want to do more than that because I'm afraid if I rush through it, I'll miss something. That needs to be done by next Friday, October 7th.
Whew. Okay, we can do this. I actually work better under a little pressure. Three chapters a day to read and look for errors, five chapters a day to fix those errors (I'm reading at Chapter 28, fixing at Chapter 11 currently) and three chapters a day to write/rewrite. No problem.
Oh yeah, and walk the dog and fix supper and... HAHAHAHAHA. I love it!
See you tomorrow!
I talked yesterday about how I wanted to be done rewriting the fifth draft of Part 2 by today and that I was disappointed that I won't make it. So, last night I sat down with my writing calendar for the next six months (yes, I have it planned out that far). Based on the progress and hurdles Part 1 has presented, I set an approximate publish date for Part 2 and worked backwards. Based on that, I have rewrites for Part 2 into Part 3 scheduled to end on October 12th. I want to work into Part 3 so the book parts flow together. However, I also sat down and counted approximately how many more chapters I'm going to need for Part 2. Currently, I have twenty more. I approximate I'll have to write five additional new chapters to round out what I've started. That brings Part 2 to a really nice and natural cliffhanger.
Side note: I was amazed as I wrote the first draft for part 2 that it just naturally came to this closing. When I sat down with the second draft, I made some major changes and I had a completely different ending in mind. Once again, it came naturally to the climax I had before. Well, I can't fight that. That's the ending. The second ending I had in mind has now become the ending of Part 3 and it works nicely, actually.
Anyway, that leaves me thirteen days to get Part 2 rewritten. So, I need to get two chapters done a day. That's do-able. But, I'd like it if I got into Part 3 by then so, I'm aiming for three chapters a day. That's still workable, I think.
The corrections for Part 1 are going. I sat down and took a hard look at what I'm correcting. I've begun another edit is what I've done. Last night, I finished repairing the corrections through chapter 10. I counted 71 things I changed. Going through it again, only 26 of those were grammatical or spelling type issues. The majority of the issues that NEED fixing are hyphens vs em dashes. Some of them didn't auto-correct in Word. Well, there's a formatting reason for that. In order to upload my manuscript for e-book, I have to have auto-correct off, which means I have to go through and paste in a symbol. Not a big deal, just takes time. I have caught a handful of spelling issues and once where I had two verbs and once where I had completely lost a word.
But, I need to turn the editor in me off. 2/3 of the corrections I made last night weren't necessary. The sentence was fine without the correction, I just thought it might sound better if I changed it. It's not a totally offensive thing to do, but I need to let it go, especially if the sentence is just fine the way it is.
So, I'm reading no more than three chapters a day to catch proofreading errors. I don't want to do more than that because I'm afraid if I rush through it, I'll miss something. That needs to be done by next Friday, October 7th.
Whew. Okay, we can do this. I actually work better under a little pressure. Three chapters a day to read and look for errors, five chapters a day to fix those errors (I'm reading at Chapter 28, fixing at Chapter 11 currently) and three chapters a day to write/rewrite. No problem.
Oh yeah, and walk the dog and fix supper and... HAHAHAHAHA. I love it!
See you tomorrow!
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
September 27, 2016
Good Afternoon. I hope your evening was enjoyable.
Today was a slow start again. I don't know if I should fight to be an early morning person (I never have been) or just accept that I sleep in until nine o'clock and just work with what I have. The downside to it is that two of the hours I'm sleeping, there's no children around and I could be getting a lot of work done. But then, there's no children around and I can get a lot of sleeping done as well.
So, I got the drawing of the accommodation floors up. You can click this link and get there, if you'd like. It's a little sloppy from a professional standpoint, but then, I'm not trying to make blueprints of it so it'll have to do.
I didn't get any re-writing done yesterday. That's okay. I spent the whole day working on the drawing so I could get it done. I feel better now that's it's taken care of. Today, I plan on doing more writing. I have a chapter that needs to be pulled out of the blue and put to paper. Once that's done, I can move onto another few chapters to re-write.
The proofing is going well. I've found a couple places where I had double tabs at the beginning of paragraphs. I'm very pleased that I ordered it. Hopefully, I can get it cleaned up and it won't be so sloppy. Blech. Sometimes the truth sounds horrible.
Well, I better get to work. I'll see you tomorrow.
Today was a slow start again. I don't know if I should fight to be an early morning person (I never have been) or just accept that I sleep in until nine o'clock and just work with what I have. The downside to it is that two of the hours I'm sleeping, there's no children around and I could be getting a lot of work done. But then, there's no children around and I can get a lot of sleeping done as well.
So, I got the drawing of the accommodation floors up. You can click this link and get there, if you'd like. It's a little sloppy from a professional standpoint, but then, I'm not trying to make blueprints of it so it'll have to do.
I didn't get any re-writing done yesterday. That's okay. I spent the whole day working on the drawing so I could get it done. I feel better now that's it's taken care of. Today, I plan on doing more writing. I have a chapter that needs to be pulled out of the blue and put to paper. Once that's done, I can move onto another few chapters to re-write.
The proofing is going well. I've found a couple places where I had double tabs at the beginning of paragraphs. I'm very pleased that I ordered it. Hopefully, I can get it cleaned up and it won't be so sloppy. Blech. Sometimes the truth sounds horrible.
Well, I better get to work. I'll see you tomorrow.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Look what came in the mail! September 22, 2016
The proof copy is in!! I'm excited! This is so cool! AAAHHH!
Okay, let's rejoice for a moment, shall we?
Me - It looks like a real book!
My hubby - It IS a real book, honey.
Me - ........... I guess so............
The cover is a matte finish. My hubby really likes it because it makes the drawing of the cover art look like you could touch it and smudge the graphite. I'm so happy the windows go up the middle of the spine! I only had to upload that four times before that was finally correct.
Okay, so, nitty-gritty. I ordered this book proof so I can see what it looked like, hold it in my hands and read it to find any errors that needed fixing. I like the feel of it. It's really cool. (I want to do another one!). It's almost like holding your child for the first time. It looks awesome inside. (There's that 'it looks like a real book' thing again.) I'm kinda in la-la land right now. I have it here, I can read it, touch it... smell it. It still doesn't seem real.
So, now that I've had it for eighteen hours, what have I found so far? First, it was TOTALLY worth it to buy the proof. Originally, I wasn't intending on purchasing it, I was going to hit the publish button and go with it. Well, the font on the title isn't correct (how did I miss that? - It's right in the mock-up). Since I'm going to reload the cover, I'm going to blow up the art a little bit and eliminate some of the white on the sides of the front and back. I read the first three chapters last night and I found four errors. One is major, I went in to change the verb and didn't erase what I had in there (Dur). One is a formatting error, I put in two dashes to make an 'em' dash and it didn't. I forgot a period after a set of ellipses. And, I have a comma where I should have a period (Still a complete sentence, it just reads better as two). The last three aren't a big deal and I might have left them if I hadn't found the first. But since I did, I'm going to fix the tiny stuff too. Might as well, right?
I do have another pair of eyes looking for stuff. Maybe between the two of us, we'll catch everything.
I made a small advance in my floor plan drawing. Freehand circles suck. I should just break down and go buy another compass, but I don't want to go to the store. :/ I only got 368 words written yesterday. Yes, you saw that right, 368. I think my creative tank is low. Time to read something else. I started reading The Maze Runner last night. Halfway through the first chapter, I was thinking "That's what I'm doing wrong...." After that, I read the first three chapters in my book. I'm not doing anything wrong, it's just I'm in rewrite mode, so I think everything I've been writing is crap.
That's just how it goes. The first draft (or fourth for that matter) is crap and it's ugly and it's full of grammatical issues. It's not until you sit down and look at it and say "Okay, I've used 'irritated' seven times in this six page chapter," or "I have WAY too many adverbs in this section," that you actually turn something that's okay or good to something that's captivating. It's part of the process. I've been dealing in the muck this last six weeks, and so from my point of view, all I can see is yuck.
 |
| Look what I have! |
Okay, let's rejoice for a moment, shall we?
Me - It looks like a real book!
My hubby - It IS a real book, honey.
Me - ........... I guess so............
 |
| The windows go up the center! |
The cover is a matte finish. My hubby really likes it because it makes the drawing of the cover art look like you could touch it and smudge the graphite. I'm so happy the windows go up the middle of the spine! I only had to upload that four times before that was finally correct.
 |
| Chapter 17? |
So, now that I've had it for eighteen hours, what have I found so far? First, it was TOTALLY worth it to buy the proof. Originally, I wasn't intending on purchasing it, I was going to hit the publish button and go with it. Well, the font on the title isn't correct (how did I miss that? - It's right in the mock-up). Since I'm going to reload the cover, I'm going to blow up the art a little bit and eliminate some of the white on the sides of the front and back. I read the first three chapters last night and I found four errors. One is major, I went in to change the verb and didn't erase what I had in there (Dur). One is a formatting error, I put in two dashes to make an 'em' dash and it didn't. I forgot a period after a set of ellipses. And, I have a comma where I should have a period (Still a complete sentence, it just reads better as two). The last three aren't a big deal and I might have left them if I hadn't found the first. But since I did, I'm going to fix the tiny stuff too. Might as well, right?
I do have another pair of eyes looking for stuff. Maybe between the two of us, we'll catch everything.
I made a small advance in my floor plan drawing. Freehand circles suck. I should just break down and go buy another compass, but I don't want to go to the store. :/ I only got 368 words written yesterday. Yes, you saw that right, 368. I think my creative tank is low. Time to read something else. I started reading The Maze Runner last night. Halfway through the first chapter, I was thinking "That's what I'm doing wrong...." After that, I read the first three chapters in my book. I'm not doing anything wrong, it's just I'm in rewrite mode, so I think everything I've been writing is crap.
That's just how it goes. The first draft (or fourth for that matter) is crap and it's ugly and it's full of grammatical issues. It's not until you sit down and look at it and say "Okay, I've used 'irritated' seven times in this six page chapter," or "I have WAY too many adverbs in this section," that you actually turn something that's okay or good to something that's captivating. It's part of the process. I've been dealing in the muck this last six weeks, and so from my point of view, all I can see is yuck.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
September 15, 2016
Good morning.
I received my approval back from CreateSpace again. My letters on my spine were .02" too big. So, they resized it and moved the spine so it was centered. Uh, yeah. It's off.
I know why, I had my overall measurements for the whole cover a 1/8" too small (as opposed to 1/8" too big yesterday). Therefore, my centerline was off. As far as my lettering being too big, I don't think I changed it but maybe I did. Anyway, I'll have to fix it and upload the file again. So, I won't be able to order a proof book until tomorrow, if everything meets muster.
Yesterday, I managed to get some re-writing done, about 4000 words. I feel more accomplished when I'm able to do that. I realize formatting by text and getting my cover just right is progress, but for whatever reason, I feel I need to be writing everyday.
Because of that, I've changed how I'm organizing my day. I'm treating it like it's a job and I'm devoting at least eight hours a day to it. I'm getting ready for work every morning, like I would if I were leaving the house, make-up, earrings, etc. I'm dressing like I would be in a casual office, no more t-shirts and shorts. And I'm taking breaks every two hours, two 15 min and a lunch.
The first two hours of the morning, I take care of business type stuff, answering emails, blogging and calling people if I need to. Whatever I get done during that time is what I get done. If it's still there after two hours, it goes on tomorrow's list. Two hours a day to work on things like corrections, editing, covers, formatting, etc. Four hours to do creative things like first draft or re-writing.
I see a few difficulties with this, like on days when I need to go to the store or when there's an activity the kids need me to go to such as a cross country meet or back to school night. So, I'm planning on doing this six days a week. The kids will have to help clean the house (they should anyway) and I'll go do mom/wife things when I supposed to. I'm hoping this will still allow me to get forty hours of work in a week. I'm guessing it will be more, because that's how it's been.
I'll check in tomorrow. Have a good day!
Construct 11 copyright registration pending
I received my approval back from CreateSpace again. My letters on my spine were .02" too big. So, they resized it and moved the spine so it was centered. Uh, yeah. It's off.
I know why, I had my overall measurements for the whole cover a 1/8" too small (as opposed to 1/8" too big yesterday). Therefore, my centerline was off. As far as my lettering being too big, I don't think I changed it but maybe I did. Anyway, I'll have to fix it and upload the file again. So, I won't be able to order a proof book until tomorrow, if everything meets muster.
Yesterday, I managed to get some re-writing done, about 4000 words. I feel more accomplished when I'm able to do that. I realize formatting by text and getting my cover just right is progress, but for whatever reason, I feel I need to be writing everyday.
Because of that, I've changed how I'm organizing my day. I'm treating it like it's a job and I'm devoting at least eight hours a day to it. I'm getting ready for work every morning, like I would if I were leaving the house, make-up, earrings, etc. I'm dressing like I would be in a casual office, no more t-shirts and shorts. And I'm taking breaks every two hours, two 15 min and a lunch.
The first two hours of the morning, I take care of business type stuff, answering emails, blogging and calling people if I need to. Whatever I get done during that time is what I get done. If it's still there after two hours, it goes on tomorrow's list. Two hours a day to work on things like corrections, editing, covers, formatting, etc. Four hours to do creative things like first draft or re-writing.
I see a few difficulties with this, like on days when I need to go to the store or when there's an activity the kids need me to go to such as a cross country meet or back to school night. So, I'm planning on doing this six days a week. The kids will have to help clean the house (they should anyway) and I'll go do mom/wife things when I supposed to. I'm hoping this will still allow me to get forty hours of work in a week. I'm guessing it will be more, because that's how it's been.
I'll check in tomorrow. Have a good day!
Construct 11 copyright registration pending
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
September 7, 2016
Howdy! I hope your day went well yesterday. Sorry I didn't check in.
Monday, I did not get to my 6,000 word count goal. I managed about 1000. I went for a really long walk and was sore all day. The kids, the husband and I scrubbed the house, which was sorely needed. (Apparently, writing makes house-cleaning impossible. ;) ). With the rest of the hubby's day off, we went to a small, local amusement park and played miniature golf, enjoyed the bumper boats and loved the go-carts. Afterwards, we went to have hamburgers. It was a lovely afternoon and a much needed break.
Tuesday (yesterday), I didn't even get the 1000 words I did on Monday. The proofreading is done for part 1 and I spent the part of the day with my editor talking about the issues (mostly grammatical) that needed fixed. The rest of the day, I spent as a jelly-brained slug. So, there you go.
Today, I took the plunge and purchased the ISBN! Wow, it's like... getting real now. I do plan to do some re-writing today, along with taking care of the proofreading fixes.
It's getting closer.
Construct 11 Copyright registration pending.
Monday, I did not get to my 6,000 word count goal. I managed about 1000. I went for a really long walk and was sore all day. The kids, the husband and I scrubbed the house, which was sorely needed. (Apparently, writing makes house-cleaning impossible. ;) ). With the rest of the hubby's day off, we went to a small, local amusement park and played miniature golf, enjoyed the bumper boats and loved the go-carts. Afterwards, we went to have hamburgers. It was a lovely afternoon and a much needed break.
Tuesday (yesterday), I didn't even get the 1000 words I did on Monday. The proofreading is done for part 1 and I spent the part of the day with my editor talking about the issues (mostly grammatical) that needed fixed. The rest of the day, I spent as a jelly-brained slug. So, there you go.
Today, I took the plunge and purchased the ISBN! Wow, it's like... getting real now. I do plan to do some re-writing today, along with taking care of the proofreading fixes.
It's getting closer.
Construct 11 Copyright registration pending.
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