Before I get started, I'm just going to leave THIS link and ask you to click on over and vote. Please and thank you? As of this morning, The Winter Wolf is in a very precarious 2nd. I don't think we'll ever catch first place, but I'm willing to try!
It's not a bad little story, guys!
There is, however, a lot of editing required. I mean a lot. It's not even editing for the writing (though there is that too), but fixing up a whole whack of weird things that happen when one copies and pastes from a website into Word. There are some very weird things.
I have managed to break down the story into thirty-six odd chapters, if you include the epilogue as a chapter (and I do). There is no prologue, interestingly enough. There will be, however, a substantial foreword. Things need to be said.
In any case, I'm now combing through the manuscript chapter by chapter and making sure each chapter makes sense and is as free of mistakes as I can make it (which, as it turns out, is not very free at all. Sigh). Normally, this is as far as I go with editing before I send it off to my Beta Readers. I make it sound like nothing, but that's actually quite a lot.
However, this story took two years to write, the events voted on by committee. In the meantime, I was writing and editing other works. This is not how I normally write a book. Ordinarily it takes me anywhere between three months to a year to write a book, and I'm focussed solely on that book. I don't write stories simultaneously. The greater focus permits me to write tighter stories with plots that don't go all over the place in a directionless manner. Any wandering the plot does is deliberate.
The point is, after I'm done the chapter sweep, I have to go back again and ensure that the story as a whole is cohesive and flows.
What I'm saying is that it's a lot of work. I'm happy to be getting it done, though. I'm far enough along that I'm comfortable with beginning the process of creating the paperback on my P.O.D. printer's account. It looks like Sky Road Walker will be out next year. I'm undecided if I should make it my annual Hallowe'en release, or something extra. I'm leaning towards something extra, but am feeling the pressure to have a story ready for publication next year... which I currently do not.
Daughters of Britain is still being written, and sits sadly neglected while I edit Sky Road Walker. I also want to get the first book of The Great Man series up and out into the world, but that requires extensive rewrites, so it'll be a while yet. Hopefully I'll get one of the two done and in good shape to publish by Hallowe'en next year.
I'm stressing about it, honestly! Le sigh!
Alright, I have some Welsh to go learn, and then more Sky Road Walker to edit.
Ciao!