Of Kilted Pleasure is written. It is for the most part finished. I will now, having just canonized it and formatting it in terms of double-spacing the manuscript, justifying the sides, and changing the font to size 14 so I can easily read it and make changes, tweak it. I went to two separate places to have it printed out because I didn't want to use my personal printer and ink. I decided to come right back home and do just that after FedEx/Kinkos was going to charge $49.71 and the UPS Store was going to charge $29.14. Crazies! I'm not about to pay that sort of highway robbery for 275 pages. Both prices above were on the assumption of double-sided printing. WHAT? Seriously, I can print the 275 pages on one side of a piece of paper through my own printer and use about 1/2 of a cartridge of ink which will be about $9.00 max. Who do these people think they are? Who do they think we are? It's amazing.
Anyway, the net numbers for now, before I rewrite it are: 65,877 words, 273 pages, and God only knows how many errors. I'll need to go through the manuscript and reformat taking out the quoted dialogue and placing it under the text so that people can see that there is a conversation going on. This will add to the number of pages and the fact that I will choose size 12 font rather than the typical 11 will also add a few pages to the overall book. It should be about the same size as a John Grisham or James Patterson book. I haven't really checked out other writers to see what size books they have since I've been using my Kindle. I really should do that. I'll go tomorrow and pick up a sleazy Highland Romance book that has been a good seller and I can use it as a tool or guide for some formatting. I like to use the work of successful authors when I do these things. Makes sense.
I have stacks of notes I need to write up rather than leaving them in their handwritten form as they are now. I could easily misplace them if they're not typed up and filed away as "notes". I always have difficulty doing the notes from my chicken scratch handwritten notes. I can't read what I wrote most of the time and I end up either turning it on its side or tilting my head back and forth before giving the paper to my kid to ask her to decipher it. She's usually pretty good at making out some of the words, then I can put the bits and pieces together to figure out what it was that I wanted to say or at least not forget.
Having celebrated writing the two words "The End" on the last page, I went to Whataburger for a big fat grilled chicken sandwich, some fries, and an enormously too-large unsweetened iced tea. I figured I deserved it. I also used the occasion to bribe Laura to pull the printer out from the closet, set it up, and have it ready for my use later on this evening or maybe tomorrow. I'm glad she'll work for a chicken sandwich meal from Whataburger or Braums. I really am blessed when you think about it, and yes, I do think about it. I wrote the words "The End" and then thought "Oh my GOSH...I really finished it." Except yeah, now I have to go through it, but it's done. I mean, it's done almost, but it's done.
I have to put fillers in here and there, things like "a trilling blue bird sat high upon his perch calling for his would-be spring mate" and things like that. I have to better or more fully describe each character when they are introduced. I need to add substance and color to the more vague overviews that are scattered throughout the pages. I'll lengthen the reel dance to include a bit of explanation of what it is, when it started, etc. I need to go through and change words if I used them too often, or if I think a synonym will be a better choice. I have a lot of foo-foo words threaded through the book intentionally to make the reader ask "OK, I should know what that word means...what does it mean?" Then they go look it up and think, "Oh OK, yeah, I was right." There are Scottish words such as "loan" which refers to a "lane" and I say so. Much like the word "loch" is used for the word "lake", and so forth.
Done! Ewan is moving to Edinburgh now, awaiting the arrival of Aria, and they will make theirs a new life together with hope and love in the forefront. They deserve it. They really do. (1745 was an incredibly hard year) I'll take the weekend to do the adjusting and by Monday I should have the book ready to send to the publisher. I won't send it Monday if it's not ready, but it should be ready. When I do send it off I have a couple of rounds of corrections I can make, which is great. I think I'll wait two weeks actually before I send it off so I can wait a while, re-read it, and make more necessary changes. It's really hard to make your own corrections, let me just say that. You don't tend to find your own mistakes. I often overlook my own mistakes the first read-through, only to find them the 2nd or 3rd. If I haven't found them by the 3rd read-through, I tend to send the book off to the publisher. Then a month later when the publisher sends it back to me...I see more. UGH!! Such is the life of an author.
But I love it.
Photo Credit: Sojournintoexile.com
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