Making More Progress

Debra is pleased with what she's accomplished with her WIP.

This week I had the highlighters, pens, and sticky notes out. I did a read-through of the mss for "One Great Night", marking and noting things along the way. Since then I've gone back and added things to places that needed additions and tweaked things that weren't working, whether it was a phrase or the overall feel of the scene. For the most part, I feel the story is in good shape. Having written it all out of order, I was pleased to find there were only two scenes that needed to switch places.

I also spent some fun research time looking up quotes from Eighties Movies. My characters have a little game they play back and forth. I had left notes on the mss like, 'need a movie quote here', so it was a blast to hunt down just the right one and put it in the context of the story.

Now that all of the hand notations are done, I'll take the mss and transfer the pen markings to the computer version. After that it will be time for 'one-at-a-time' edits: going through the mss using the find function and eliminating and changing certain over-used words. Once that's complete, I'll go through the formatting steps from my publisher. In the meantime, in addition to getting the revisions transferred, I need to be working on a synopsis as well. These used to scare me, but I found a system which gives me a pretty good handle on them.

Then will come the moment of reckoning when I send it off to my editor. The project will be in her capable hands for a while, after which she will hopefully offer me a contract. After which a whole new process will begin.

Fun times!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

Family Secrets - coming August 1 - available NOW in paperback from The Wild Rose Press