A Writer's Week #67: Nitty Gritty Time

Another busy week has come and gone. I'm so excited because there is so much going on! First of all, my friends Jess & Stephanie over at Fairday's Blog contacted me to ask if Eric and Stig would like to join the Character Book Club. I asked them and they were thrilled. The Character Book Club is this cool club where fantastic characters from great middle grade novels hang out. Needless to say, Eric was extremely excited. Stig took it all with his usual calm reserve, but I could tell he was pleased. I'm very flattered that they were asked. I mean, who doesn't like being part of a cool club?

This month, Millie from Millicent Marie is Not My Name by Karen Pokras Toz interviewed the DMS (Detective Mystery Squad) from The Secret DMS Files of Fairday Morrow. Next month, May 17th to be exact, Eric and Stig from the Deliverers will be interviewing Millie right here. Stay tuned, it's going to be a lot of fun!

Then on Monday, my friend Ana Vogel sent me the preliminary layout for book 2 in the Deliverers series, Order of the Crystal Lion. That was really exciting, because it means I'm getting closer to releasing the new book.

It also meant that I had do a little bit more editing. Several of the chapters did not cooperate and were one or two lines too long. The result was a mostly blank last page for those chapters, which would not only be kind of funky looking but also a waste of paper.

As a result I spent a good deal of time finding ways to shorten things up. I wound up cutting a line of dialogue here or combining two short paragraphs there. While I was doing that, I couldn't help but notice several typos. Okay, no problem. I took care of those. Then, I noticed some missing words. Geez, I had edited this thing a few times. Others had, too. How could I have missed this stuff the first half dozen times? There was nothing for it. I grudgingly came to the realization that I was going to have to give the whole book another reading.

What I had expected to take an evening or so wound up taking the rest of the week. I only have about 45 pages left to review, then I can send the manuscript back to Ana for her to reflow. Arrgh! Oh well, it's going to be much cleaner now, but I'll bet you anything I still missed some typos. After you read the book you can let me know if you spotted any!

Since I got sidetracked with my unexpected editing task, I did not make any progress on The Golden Dragon of Ang. That's okay. This is the first week since I began the project where I did not get at least 1,400 words written. Still, right now my highest priority has to be getting The Deliverers 2 ready for publication.

I received a report from illustrator Daniel Vogel that the illustration of the crystal lion that will be the heading for the chapters is just about done and that the map is coming along nicely. Once the artwork is complete, I'll be able to upload everything to CreateSpace and order a few proofs to review. Will that be next week? I'll fill you in next Friday!