Still here!

Yeah, I still remember I've got this blog thing and I haven't updated in a while.

I've sent off my full manuscript to Mme. Editrix today after some a few A LOT of updates. I tried to pay attention to the changes and comments she'd made on my excerpts and thought it'd be unfair if I hadn't. After the billionth time I changed a verb or adverb, oftentimes removing a dialogue tag in conjunction with the change, I got the sinking suspicion that I'll have to take extra care with my current WIP and possibly start it from the very beginning because of what she'd pointed out to me.

Part of it is this was my first NaNoWriMo manuscript. I had a ton of extra verbiage in the manuscript because I needed to make word count. During the rewrite, I'd deleted approximately 2500 words or so. Probably could've cut more but we'll see after I get it back.

Next was "incomplete pass" syndrome. When somebody first sat down and truly edited a short I'd written, he pointed out I had a lot of odd, missing, or incomplete actions. Somebody would stand in one sentence and in the next, they'd be magically dressed or out the door. So I felt I had to spell it out word for word for word what the characters where doing along with what they were saying.

Next came the "-ing" verbs. This is something I had no idea I was doing. At all. The guy mentioned above pointed out how many times I'd used the word "gently" in the story he'd edited but I didn't notice. In the excerpts I'd sent for Aspen Mountain's anniversary week and my cover art request, I was completely clueless on how often I'd used "-ing" verbs on a page; she highlighted at least 25 examples in an excerpt of less than 500 words. Not a good ratio, I'd say; I suck at math, but seeing the highlighted words told me she has a point.

So that was what I'd worked on for most of last week. I'd steal time here and there so I could get it cleaned up more and it can get released just that much sooner.

And so she won't make fun of me on Facebook.