The edit…
OK, just doing a quick post before bed, as tomorrow will be a huge day.
Tomorrow, I will read my book in its entirety for the first time since writing it in March and April. There is finally enough distance to read it objectively.
I actually just read the first two chapters tonight, as they have been around for a while, and was able to do some painless line edits and such, while at the same time still kind of knowing the text, but not.
But as chapter three really begins the "unknown," that is where tomorrow begins. The goal is to read through all 500ish pages, making line edits on the text itself where obvious. And, for larger concerns, writing them down with appropriate page numbers in a separate legal pad.
Things that have to do with pacing, missing scenes, and such will go in the legal pad.
Once I have that overview of the book I have written, then it will be a linear edit from beginning to end, starting with the line edits I’m doing now, but then tweaking every chapter and getting it down to its fighting weight.
It’s hard to tell based on the first two chapters, which I am very familiar with and have been around for a while, but it seemed pretty tight. Let’s hope that continues.
Going to bed early now, and tomorrow will just be waking up, hitting the gym, and then cracking open the manuscript.
I hope to be in full-on editing mode now for a while, trying to figure out exactly what that is. Unlike the writing, which had the 2,000 words per day benchmark, editing is very vague. Still trying to get a good handle on what constitutes having put in a good chunk of my day. So, I plan to just do it every day until I feel like I’m dimming. Hopefully, a schedule will work itself out.
For the next week or so, at least one meal will be a nice, healthy salad. I actually followed through on a plan I came up with a little while ago, so this evening I made "salad bags." Basically, I bought one quart freezer bags and, in nine of them, I put equal portions of frozen corn, frozen pepper strips, garbanzo beans, red kidney beans, baked teriyaki tofu, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, and grated carrot. Eight of them are now in the freezer for future salads (just add greens, cherry tomatoes, and dressing), with one in the on-deck circle for tomorrow’s lunch.
I just hate boring salads (greens, tomato, cuke, dressing), so this lets me have variety while also not requiring a ton of prep time. It also cuts down on the quantity of stuff in the salads, so opening a can of kidney beans now yields nine salads with a small number of beans, rather than three salads with a lot of kidney beans.
So, I’m looking forward to reading my book, and having a nice salad all ready to go when I take a break for lunch.
I will post my thoughts on reading the book tomorrow, as the goal is to finish the readthrough in one day. I just cheated on the first two chapters, as they are too familiar to count anyway.
