WHERE AM I NOW?

My writing space

This week I have started the final editing on my manuscript of "Shadow of the Lion".  I bought a very useful book "Manuscript Makeover" by Elizabeth Lyon and recommend it to anyone who is planning to edit their novel or short story manuscript in preparation to send it off to a publisher.  Besides that, I've had someone doing a thorough reader's critique and making notes where I need to change or cut.  So far the job is going quickly. Today I already finished red pencilling Part One with very few corrections or necessary adjustments or tweaks.  It's amazing how 'polished' it was and that is because I did block editing and workshopped each 'scene' as I was writing it.

It's also interesting to go back and read 'fresh' what I had written so long ago.  Amazing, really, as some of it seems as if it came from someone else. I can't remember where I got those words or when I put them down so astutely!  I'm sure, though, that as I go through it I'll find the parts that are not so smooth and those will likely be what gets cut.  Because I do have a lot of cutting to do in order to keep the manuscript to a workable and publishable length.

I have a good team lined up - my critique reader and a professional editor and someone else who offered to do proof reading.  So that's a good start.  And already I've had a little 'bite' about it although I am not going to start the big pitch to agents just yet.  I could though, as the first 3 chapters are pretty polished.  But I still have to set it up in a new file on my computer and make sure it looks as professional as possible. And that will come next.

Pretty soon I'm going to set up a special blog for the novel where I can add links to interesting facts about Alexander and the history that I have written about in the book.  I also have an "Introduction to Shadow of the Lion" group on Facebook, so if you're a Facebooker, take a look at that!

Meanwhile, stay tuned for the next reports.  These are a different type of 'progress report' that I was blogging about before when I was still writing.  Now you'll be hearing from the Editor's Desk!