The Dark Lands Week 13

June 6th, 2009 by 801red

Started my 2nd edit this week. My wife is reading a chapter and marking it up all nice and pretty and then I go in behind her and make changes. This is going to be my final edit before I let outside sources have a look at it.

I have also continued to read the story to my class and have been happy with the response so far. Those who are actually interested in the story seem to be enjoying it. This is pretty good considering that it is the last two weeks of school and interesting eighth graders in anything is pretty amazing.

The one thing that reading the story out loud has really confirmed for me is that I like the story. I enjoy reading it and I think the story and characters are pretty strong. I have read a lot of books in my life, I am a pretty good judge. I think that I did what I set out to do. Write a fun fantasy/horror novel with characters a reader can care about.

I have also found that reading the book out loud has been the single best method of editing. It doesn’t matter how many times I look at a sentence. I still miss things until I hear it out loud. I try to convince my students to do the same thing when they are writing but they almost never do. Then they will read it out loud to the class and realize that it was riddled with errors.

I have had an interesting week on this project. I have not felt 100% and I didn’t do a lot of actual writing. This week was thinking about the story. Making corrections and getting ready for the last blast through the book. I think that I will be done with the third draft in about 7 to 10 days. It will depend on how much time my wife has during this last week of school to edit. I don’t want her to rush so I will just have to be patient.

The whole process continues to be a good one for me. I feel like a writer. I created a world in my head and put it down on paper. It is as good as I could make it. I didn’t just write it and set it aside. I worked it over like a musician trying to get that perfect sound. Sunday is going to be a big edit day for me. I am going to crank up iTunes with the majestic stylings of Zoë Keating and Amanda Palmer. Let my creative juices flow and do the writing tango.

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