Celebration! Line-edit done!
Small celebration, at least in my mind as tonight completed a major mile-stone as I installed the last chapters that have gone through a line-edit by my most generous editor Marissa Stevens who I highly recommend to any writer needing a helping hand! It has been a long haul for both of us but now we have finished! Yay!
Those of you who don't know what a line-edit is, it is exactly that. It is when you and your editor go through each and every line of your manuscript from beginning to end. To give you an idea as my manuscript stands right now, that is 370 pages, 91,431 words, or in line count, 7,646 lines reviewed and edited. Think about going through all that, checking for grammar, checking for structure, cutting out sections, rewriting other sections, chopping out entire paragraphs, and in some cases chapters entirely. Moving scenes from one place to another. All to perfect the manuscript to the best it can be and allow the best flow for the reader it can have.
Now I thank my great crew at work for allowing me to get off work a bit early so I could spend some time on my edits. This last Labor Day weekend had me doing a late spring cleaning of the garage and lots of yard work, so I ended up too tired to focus on any editing. Made up for that tonight. Been a while since I have been able to focus entirely on edits and looking forward. Felt good.
Now I wish I could say "I'm officially done!" But, alas, not quite by a long shot. I recently had a full beta read done by another great editor to get a different perspective from someone not so attached to it as Marissa and I may be, and I got back lots of notes on sections that need more character development, or sections that impede flow, or more chapters that may need to be removed. Things that Marissa had said to me before, but now are hammered home. All part of what they call developmental editing. So that is now the next phase I will be entering.
A full re-read by myself and Marissa will need to be done to make sure now in a straight read through that indeed the flow goes smoothly with no hiccups. Already have lots of great ideas and notes from the both of them to improve. One heck of a job I tell ya, but we are getting there! A light is definitely shining at the end of the tunnel now. Wa hoo.
Final phases will be:
* Read through development final edit
* Final grammar check
* Synopsis written and edited
* Final Synopsis completed
* Query letter completed
* Final Query letter checked by editor
* Enter Query
* Final selection of agents to send to selected
* Query letter sent off to first batch of selected agents
* Potentially several more sends to new agents spaced apart from each previous send to offer reasonable time for a response.
* You wait and hope and try again over and over as necessary.
