Michelle's corner

So, it's Friday night and I'm back working on Grave. Today didn't go as expected. Did a little work after waking up unexpectedly, and then detected my eyes going funny; a sure sign of an oncoming migraine, so I closed the laptop and hunkered down. Fortunately, I avoided the worst of it and spent most of the day painting the second coat on the outside of the fence.

However, once the evening had settled down, including a fax call to the X directory landline from an American number (I really hate having my ear blasted to shit by those things) I got pen and paper and jotted everything down that had to happen. Then, a bit of shifting around later, I had it all in sequence.

So, now I just have to pen the scenes, as outlined, and I should have the whole story told and have likely exceeded the 50,000 target.

I hope to reach that point by the end of next week, as I have a guest this weekend.

So what will happen after that? Then I start the read through process. First few passes are detailed, to check the flow and make sure it all works; that the dialogue is in-character and makes sense. The next few passes become grammar and my usual standard spelling checks. I check it on multiple formats and devices, because for some stupid reason, I pick up some mistakes on one device, that I miss on others.

Then it goes to friends to read. This usually takes a few weeks and their feedback has to be merged in with the main manuscript. This can be things that weren't clear to them, suggestions for events, all sorts. I never really know what's going to come back. While this is going on, I'll be looking towards the next book and getting things ready for that; potentially even putting the first few chapters down.

When all that is finished, I hand it to someone to edit. They'll take a few weeks on it, and when they're done, we'll meet up and go through their print out and the notes they've written.

My last task is to merge their notes in with the manuscript; as I have to interpret their judgement. Things like comma placement need care because sometimes grammatical correctness (of which there are different versions) can clash with the reading flow. The ultimate choice rests with me.

When all that is then done, it gets some final readings and then I hand it to the publisher. We discuss the cover art and then it's over to them. It'll probably be the end of November or early December before I have the finished book in my hands.