It’s a while since I’ve written about the book, mainly because I’ve been so busy editing the thing.
It’s a big job. Some days I can work my way through three or four pages of the stuff I’ve already written. On others, three paragraphs would be something of an achievement. Am I taking too long over it? I don’t think so. There’s no point racing through and ending up with something you’re not happy with and clearly won’t sell.
I also know that this edit, making a second draft, won’t be the only one. I can see how it has improved so far, but I also know where it could yet be better. Even looking at the first couple of chapters, which I was quite happy with following the first thorough edit, I can see where a few little tweaks here and there could make things better still.
Fortunately I have two very helpful readers who have been running through it with pen in hand to pick out the bits that don’t quite work. It’s been very instructional and incredibly helpful, in large part because their points of concern have pretty much mirrored my own, which would suggest my self-criticism is valid. I’m also relieved that as we tend to agree on the points of issue I’m not kidding myself that it’s all great. That would be awful.
So the book is coming along and I’m now at the end of the second draft of the first five chapters. But that’s not the last chapter, and it’s far from the last edit, too.
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