It’s been… something.

A long time working on two projects at the same time -full disclosure, one of them I’ve done most of my work but do slip in here and there to do some other stuff- and dealing with all kinds of other issues.

It’s been, frankly, exhausting.

I don’t expect nor want sympathy, but it’s tough to work as much as I do and without much of a break between projects/jobs and keep the proverbial flame going bright.

Two days ago I finished putting in the 6th draft revisions of my latest novel. I find the first half of the book quite good and maybe not needing much more work. The second half of the book, however, did need more attention. The elements, mind you, are all there but it felt like I needed to smooth over things and explain other things a little better. There were the usual bugs I have to clean up, from redundant sequences (a favorite of mine, it seems… writing a sequence only to then write it again in another section of the story!) to sequences that could use a little -or a lot!- of tightening.

Either way, I just finished printing out the second half of the novel and intend to give it a good hard look, fix up what I can, put it into the computer, then print the whole thing out and go into the full draft.

It feels like I’m nearing the end here and I’m generally very happy with what I’ve written.

Now, if the world can stop collapsing around me for a bit so I can focus on that…!

So two days ago I finished the revisions, on computer, of my latest novel.

I’m really happy with the novel in its current state. Most of it is fine and a couple of spots still need a little revision but the bottom line is that it took me about 2 months to get all this stuff put into the computer file.

I feel like the book maybe needs another two drafts before it’s ready for release. I’m mulling an epilogue and there is one part close to the climax that could use a little work but, as I noted, I’m happy with the novel and feel its really close to being “finished”.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

So as of today I’m roughly 1/5th or so of the way through putting the revisions made in red ink into the computer file and… I have to say, I’m finding this stuff moving along really nicely.

The book has lingered with me for longer than I wanted but I think in part this happened because of a general depression. I don’t want to keep coming back to it, but if you’ve read my entries you know what happed to my parents and it has impacted me. How could it not?

At times I’ve felt like I’ve been running at half speed… getting things done but not really putting as much energy into them like I did before.

Reading through the book to get to this point felt like it took me forever… but I’ll be damned if the process didn’t allow me to come to understand what I was writing and how I was going to present the various characters and situations.

So far, putting all this stuff into the computer has proven a far easier task than that readthrough and red marker revision. The book has essentially two “introductory” parts before the novel proper begins and both of them, I feel, are pretty close to be complete and done. I’ve now moved into the novel proper as of today and these initial pages are also flowing wonderfully.

It’s a satisfying feeling to see the work taking shape and -to the extent it can being only words on a page- life.

I’m happy with it and I’m eager to get through it!

More to come!