More process than product.

I have been editing a book for longer than I’ve been writing it. Such is the way of things. But I am seven chapters from the end of The Aldersgate, and looking at my collected chapters in Scrivener gives me a very warm sense of accomplishment.

I’m hitting the home stretch, and yesterday when I went to visit my husband at work, I was listening to the radio and tying up loose ends in my head for the last few chapters; everything sort of rushed and me, and I realized about ten minutes into my thought process that I was going the wrong way on the highway–i.e. north and not south. I had to turn around.

I’m a mess when I’m this involved, and right now it’s like trying to make sense of a hive of bees. Posting may be a little few and far between in the next week or so as I’m doing all I can to finish this.

But on a separate note. Podcasting has made this whole process very different from editing I’d done in the past. Now I’m so much more aware of the language, and details often jump out at me that I would have likely forgotten. A few times I’ve rewritten entire chapters as a result of reading it aloud and realizing that is doesn’t. So my editing has been very non-linear. Today I opened up the last of my problem chapters, one I’ve not yet read but will be reading soon, and I was fully prepared to do another rewrite. However, upon reading it I realized–heck, this is good. This is fine. What was I thinking before?

My goal by February is to print out everything at Kinkos again, let it sit for a few weeks while I work on another WIP, and get ready to get his thing going!

Currently the draft is at 122K… hopefully I can reign in a little, trim later, and just concentrate on telling the story before I go much more long winded! Egads.