Page by Page

 

Page by Page

By John W. Vander Velden

 

There have been several things going on in my life these last months. It has been difficult to carve out the time needed to work on my writing project. But I do my best to attack the second editorial revisions of When Light Comes Unexpected the fourth book of the Misty Creek Series. For I know readers of the series await the next instalment, and I continue, page by page, to work on the near final draft.

I am handling this book differently than the three before it. Perhaps because writing these books has, for me, been a learning curve. So on this draft I will sift through these pages three times.

Step one: I am going over my editor’s comments, making changes when I feel best, but considering each comment she makes carefully. I agree with most of her suggestions, but not all. She understands me quite well, and that helps the both of us as we work on this book.

After I go through fifty or sixty pages, I begin step two: I print off three chapters at a time to be read out loud. I find that combination of verbalizing the pages and seeing them on a medium other than a computer monitor, helps me catch mistakes.

That leaves step three: After I make changes from step 2, I load those three chapters into my tablet and allow my electronic reader to read them to me. This is an important step I learned on my third book. The machine reads what is on the page not what my brain thinks is on the page.

So how far have I gotten into this task.

I have completed all three steps on 330 pages out of 518. That being said I have completed the first step to page 400. So you can see I have done the lion’s share of the heavy lifting.

But the work continues…page by page.   

(320 Words) 10-18-2024