This week flew by pretty quickly, and I can’t quite pinpoint what has occupied my time and thoughts.

I’ve been productive overall, so that’s good news. Aaaand the novel beyond the manuscript is starting to take shape. Freakin’ awesome.

I started reading through my manuscript in earnest this week. 35,000 words in so far. I’ve had to check my over-thinking self quite a bit. My goal with this read-through is to highlight glossary terms and catch obvious punctuation and grammar errors.

What I’ve caught myself doing is writing comments about wording or whether a certain idea needs to be expressed in that way. Wording changes are well and good… if they’re few and far between.

I do not want to end up with a manuscript covered in red ink that would take me weeks to go through and correct. I can’t re-write my book at this point. I need to remind myself to be okay with what I have.

Is it well written? Does it make sense? Is it consistent with the rest of the story? If the answer is yes to all of those, I don’t want to change it —  not now.

Anyway, printing out my manuscript to edit in pen and marker is the best decision I’ve made in this phase. The editing is more active, and I can just make a note or little mark to remind myself to check something and move on. I’ve done very little flipping back-and-forth, which is good. That means my story is smooth overall.

The Novel Taking Shape

Okay, so the novel itself isn’t taking shape. It’s not like I’m binding it together one page at a time.

But the idea of a finished novel is much more tangible to me now. I’ve started talking to my book designer about the specifics of my page formatting, like chapter headings and section breaks. The contract does not begin for another couple of weeks, but I’d like to start ideating with him to make sure we’re on the same page going in.

Also, my illustrator sent me a sample from the fantasy map he’s creating for me! He designed a little icon for one of the cities on my map, completely without asking me. It looks awesome.

… Okay, it looks nothing like the city in question, but his effort and attention to detail continue to astound me. I told him it was a great idea and gave him the details for each city. I can’t wait to see what he comes back with.

I really need to move if I’m going to finalize my manuscript by mid-April, so ambitious goals incoming.

Goals for 4/6

1. Continue to wake up early. I’ve been not-terrible this week.
2. Read through 90,000+ words in WoEM
3. Start to organize additional manuscript materials: title page, table of contents, dedication, copyright page, glossary… anything else I need?

Steve D