Another Novel Update!

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Book I of the Worldstrait Duology
Cover image: Koltyrin Alexander/Shutterstock.com

I am so excited I might explode.

I just received the manuscript of Charybda back from my awesome editor yesterday. Her eagle eyes caught a misspelling I overlooked a bare minimum of twenty times, not to mention one that all my beta readers missed. Is it strange that I find that fact so exciting?

So, what does this mean for the publication process? Well, first I have to apply the edits on the marked-up hard copy of the manuscript to the digital version. Of course, I also have to re-read my manuscript one more time to be certain I am not introducing new errors into the mix. Then, I have to format the novel for print and eBook before I can publish them.

It’s hard work being an independent author and publisher! But it’s a challenge I accept, and I cannot wait to be able to share my work with you. November is getting closer and closer…look for the novel to hit the online bookstores in just two months!

Novel News Update!

It’s time for an update on the Worldstrait books!

I am now officially “done” with Charybda (Book I), and it is being edited for grammar and style even as I’m writing these words. This is round one of editing, so there are still more steps before everything is officially completed, but the hard part is over now. Now I just have to make tweaks to the manuscript (hopefully not too many) until there are as few typos as possible. I say as few as, rather than no, because I know for a fact that at least one typo will sneak in there. Even traditionally published books have them, or have usage mistakes. In my edition of Jay Kristoff’s novel Stormdancer, the main character’s name gets a random ‘w’ tossed in on one occasion. In my edition of Patrick Rothfuss’ novel The Name of the Wind, he uses the word callous when the correct word should be callus. And somewhere in the Thomas Covenant series (which are amazing books, by the by), I remember spotting a place with a missing space between words and a few other minor errors (one time, “the” had some other letter instead of ‘t’). People aren’t machines. Mistakes happen.

I just want as few mistakes as possible to make their way into my book.

Other than the fear of mistakes, I am pretty elated about how Charybda is progressing.

While Charybda is going wonderfully, however, Book II, Scylla, is not sailing so smoothly. I have about ninety percent of Scylla written. The final ten percent is in a very detailed synopsis-style format. Since I’m making so many changes, however, I want to start revising at the beginning and actually write the final ten percent when I get there, so I don’t have to make a lot more changes.

And in about half a year…well, suffice it to say I have not made the progress I wanted to. The tricks I used to keep myself motivated for Charybda are not working this time around, which perplexes me to no end. So, I’m working out a few new tricks to see if those will help me stay on track.

Now, I have beta readers begging me to finish Book II so they can read it—so I suppose it’s time to stop writing blog posts and get to revising my novel!