2022 Bookish Plans

Hey, Hi, Helloooo and Happy New Year! Can I still say that at the end of the month!?

Anyway... A goal I have this year is to provide more regular updates (at least once a month), to keep people in the loop and start garnering more interest for the book. Which actually does have a name - Recovering - but I've referred to it as 'The Book' for two years now, so it just feels right.

I'm excited to say that I'm on my third and final round of edits. Currently working through Chapter 18 out of 32 chapters. It's been a long process, doing edits, but I'm energized by the fact that I truly feel that this latest version of the book is the best. And I really only want to give readers the best I have to offer - no matter how tedious the work or how freaking long it takes to get it finished.

Once I slog through my edits, it'll be off to a professional editor. I've read through my writing enough times to know I'll forever be catching mistakes and I need another set of eyes on it that have a fresh perspective. There are many types of editors, which of course makes things a little complicated, but I think I've settled on the two I'm most interested in: developmental and line editing. Other types include copy editing, proofreading, and more... For this first novel in particular, I'm interested in the perspective of a developmental editor who can give me a 10,000 ft. view and make sure that my story contains all the necessary elements, doesn't have glaring plot holes, has a natural arc, etc. While I think that all of those things are already in the story as is, a professional opinion never hurts. After that, line editing will be important to catch all of those pesky grammar and spelling errors. Despite my best efforts to manually proofread and then run the text through both Hemingway Editor and Grammarly, there are still minor mistakes that I find when reviewing the compiled draft. A line editor's job is to go through the script, literally line by line, to catch those things. Sounds awful and tedious and totally necessary. Take my money, already!

While the book is with editors working their magic, I'll be focused on a few things: 1) researching and deciding on a publishing route - traditional, indie, self-pub; 2) finishing the drafts of two additional novels that I've started writing; 3) working on an e-book that will be a how-to, of sorts, on writing a novel.

Mapping out edits for the next few weeks, I've projected that I should be finished with my editing portion by the end of February. I've set numerous deadlines in the past that have come and gone, but my ultimate desire is to have a finished product or at least publishing news by my birthday. It's the big 3-0 this year! While it's really an arbitrary number, it also feels like a milestone and so I'd really like to have this project wrapped up by then.

I'll keep y'all updated, providing at least monthly blog posts so that you know what's what. That's all for now :) And now, we're on to February!