Well, another great day editing, rewrites, and website author platform building.
I surprisingly got my office all to myself for the entire day for a change. My youngest who usually snatches it from me when she gets home from school said she didn't need it today because she had not Latin to study like she normally does on Mondays. So I supremely took advantage of having my writing spot all back to myself.
Spent from 10 a.m. till about 5 pm in full line edit mode. My editor Marissa had sent me back Chapters 37-40 over the last week, so as I dug into those for final edits I found major edits were necessary. I broke one chapter into two to separate point of view issues I had in that chapter, and addressed more sentence structure and shortening that I have been continually a culprit of doing. I hope to one day actually send a chapter to Marissa for her to say, only found a couple of minor things, otherwise were good. Wow, wouldn't that be fantastic! Every time I think I am sending her something extensively edited by moi, I find out soon enough much more work is needed. I am learning constantly though from her and my critique group edits though.
My 4 biggest issues still:
1) Point of View. I constantly have the tendency to change perspectives while in a chapter. Just the way I write when I am flowing, and even after numerous edits, I find I still have left parts with POV issues.
2) Long on sentences. Another tendency I have is to have run-on sentences. I need to focus on chopping sentences and putting in periods where they need to be. At least I recognize this now in my final edits.
3) Info dumps. I keep finding info dumps in certain areas that I have to chop out. Much smaller than they were in the beginning drafts, but still not necessary and need removal. Less towards the end of my novel since I had learned along the way.
4) The biggest one of them all, which is common with many authors, especially new ones like me - Show, don't Tell! I am much better now than when I first started, but still have the desire to explain out in narrative or by external dialog what is happening. Instead, I need to be more descriptive in nature letting the reader imagine the scene by my visuals. Have done MANY rewrites to fix these issues as I or someone else catches them.
After a break at 5 pm and doing some quick leaf mulching since it will be my last chance before family comes over for Thanksgiving, I was back at it this time reviewing and revising future chapters that my editor has not gone over yet trying to catch any more POV issues and continually shortening sentences and paragraphs. Then I have to renumber all future chapters after adding a chapter into the mix, and rename each chapter revision and resend those over to Marissa telling her these override previous sends. She is now officially up to Chapter 40.
After dinner, I was again back up to finish this author platform site and make sure it is live and someone is able to pull it up. Plus save all my sign-ins for this site. I have also locked in my domain name www.KRDunn.com but I have not linked it to this WIX site yet due to the added expense on a monthly basis. Will probably do so though soon otherwise not as professional as I want it to be. They truly nickel and dime you to death with all these services. Another $17 per mth to link in my domain name to this site, then add another $2-3 to have a matching email address. Just keeps on adding up! Just like when we got rid of that big monthly cable bill, and had a small one time fee with ROKU, and then a few subscribed sites like HULU, NetFlix, and Amazon. Now we just added Hallmark and the new Disney +. The expense continues. That's life. Someday we won't own anything, it will all be on a monthly subscription, from our living arrangements to our cars, to our TV services, and to our web services. Sheesh.
I will finally post this new website address on my FB Author Page and my personal page to get the word out. I also want to post another new excerpt from my writings. Not sure if I should just include a larger first section of book one, or another chapter completely farther in the book, or maybe the prologue and first chapter of book two? Aw decisions, decisions. Looks like despite it being after 10 pm I have a little more work to still do, then a shower and off to bed to get back into the grind of my Tuesday - Saturday real paying job. Signing off. To all a good night and a great week! Looks like I will have to update my business card now. Will probably still wait until my domain name is live and connected to my website.
