Hello! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Welcome to the ‘Behind the Scenes’ of my book writing and publishing journey. Today I’m going to talk a little about the final draft read… cry, cry, cry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not going the way I’d hoped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, this is the 4th trip through this with Bri and easily the 8th draft overall. I wrote the book for NaNoWriMo in 2014. The Dream Keepers is a very well-loved story. When I decided to publish it, I printed out my last copy of the manuscript and rewrote a whole new draft into the Scrivener application. I then would export the files and import them to Google Docs and compile them for Bri. Bri and my friend Raylene read my ‘beta’ file. I took all their comments and notes and made them on a physical draft. I then posted them to Bri’s manuscript and the Scrivener one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why was I making extra work for myself? I don’t know yet. We will see how Scrivener works out to determine if it is worth it or not, okay!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Bri and I went through the copy twice more, and then we recompiled it for this final proof. Which I again made a physical copy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stress writers to do two things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, why am I crying? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because we might as well be looking at this from the beta version for all the things I see format-wise and content-wise that are wrong. It’s heartbreaking and deadline threatening since we need the final copy no later than the 16th, which probably means one more read-through, making it late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why, oh, why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess this is just because Bri and I are being very thorough. We don’t want to publish rubbish. I want to put the best I can out there for people to read. I don’t want anyone to read and review my book and leave a comment saying, ‘this wasn’t worth the money because the grammar and punctuation were a mess.’ I worked very hard on The Dream Keepers and I want it to reflect that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, this time it is me reading my book like it’s the first time I’m looking at it, after reading it at least twenty times before. I have notes to droplines to a new paragraph. Notes to explain terminology that seems unusual. Notes to move apostrophes and correct tenses. And<\/p>\n\n\n\n
notes to ask Bri why I am using tenses in some places that seem antithetical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of this includes Bri’s comments! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wah, wah, wah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All I want to do at this point is burn it and start over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, I’m looking for ARC readers and bloggers, and bookstagrammers interested in signing up for my book tours. I will have a 100% readable product ready for release. \ud83d\ude01 <\/p>\n\n\n\n