After taking a short break to celebrate the release of The Legend of Goat Head Lodge, I'm back to work. Edits for Dangerous Moves (The L & L Mysteries #4) will begin soon (hopefully this week). And let me take just a moment to explain the editing process, since it actually is quite different from what most authors go through.
Since my husband (my Muse) and I publish our own books through our publishing company, Cressen Books LLC, we wear many hats including the hat of Editor. Obviously, there's format, grammar, and spelling edits that take place. But we also do a lot of content editing in order to flesh out the story and make it come alive for our readers.
So, a typical editing session lasts about an hour, maybe two (depends on how large of a section we're tackling). If it's my books we're editing, then he reads them out loud, line for line. We've come to realize the huge benefit reading aloud is because when he reads it, we tend to find words that have been dropped (because of my speed typing and me overlooking it because I'm convinced it's there), and we discover what flows better (is the sentence too formal or too awkward?, that sort of thing).
Also, by reading aloud, we can both get a feel for what might be missing in the section. This leads to discussions of what can be added (or sometimes what can be dropped) and changes are made accordingly. Plus, when specific character conversations/interactions are read aloud, it helps me to get a better feel for how they respond to each other and whether it should be added to, changed, or taken out completely. I'm a huge fan of character interactions and I want my characters to have a realistic and comfortable feel when conversing with each other.
Anyway, so that can take us up to two hours at a time to thoroughly edit a section (usually 10-15 pages). Then, if there are major pieces I need to add to the section, we'll come back to it and do a final read-through to make sure everything's flowing right and I didn't forget something. With the way our schedules are, we're usually lucky if we can get in two editing session in a week. So, with that in mind, editing a book usually takes anywhere from a month (that's pretty darn fast) up to three months (we have a lot going on that takes away from editing time).
So, my best case scenario is that Dangerous Moves will be ready to publish sometime this summer, but I'm not holding my breath on that. As the edits come closer to being done, I'll definitely keep everyone informed and let you know when you can expect to see this next book! I will confess, though, that I'm extremely excited about this 4th installment into the L & L Mysteries, so I'll probably be pushing hard to get through all of the edits quickly but accurately!
Now, an update on Starward (Galactic Dynasty #1). I have decided to add a Word Count meter to the side bar of this blog. I'll update it periodically so you can see what progress I'm making and I'll also post when I've made major progress. In the last post, I was at 58,750 words. I am now at 60,499 and according to the word counter, that means I'm about 60% done...WOOT! So, posting may become sporadic as I work towards finishing this book. But, I'll try to come out of my writing cave at least once a week to post a general update or talk about whatever else may be floating through my brain.
Okay, it's off to work. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and I look forward to sharing more with you again soon!
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