The good news is that it doesn't take another three weeks to fluff and stuff, but it will take about a week to do it. I'm on Chapter 4 now, and I'll do another one today before calling it quits and starting again tomorrow. Tomorrow being Sunday, I will probably do five or six chapters, then I'll regulate myself and force myself to do about two or three chapters a day during the week, so I can get the job done by this time next week. Once I have the first rewrite I'll then go through the book again to see if I like it. If I like it I'll leave it alone. I know I won't like it that much.
I'll end up tweaking it a bit more, and then sending it off to be published the next week, so sometime around Valentine's Day I'll send it off, and I'll have it published. I have to send off my ideas for the cover art this week. I have an idea of what I want it to look like, but that's so hard for me to even think about. I'm being asked to write a blurb about the book too, the one that goes on the back of the book, and it's the one that they use to market it. It's so hard to condense a book of 300+ pages down to 150 words!! I have to find a way to do it. I can do it.
Today, I took my flash drive with the notes I've been writing for the fluffing and stuffing sessions to the FedEx store to print out the pages on the flash drive. I should have my printer up and ready, but no, I don't. Anyway, I took the flash drive there and realized that I had just been there three weeks beforehand with the same flash drive that had the idea (the concept) of the book, and now I have the entire book on the same flash drive as well as the 20 pages of notes I want to add inside the manuscript in one way or another. Three weeks!! I can't remember ever writing a book in just over three weeks. Crazy!
I came home with my 20 pages of notes and now I'm going through the book reading it and trying to figure out where I want to add the imagery and the filler stuff. I like my writing, the style, and whatnot, so adding to it in the arrears is a bit challenging for me. I don't tend to see the points where I can stop, put in a comma, and then add something. I tend to think I should leave well enough alone. Then I run across a note that says "When you introduce a new character be sure and add four very distinctive characteristics about that person." Apparently, four is the accepted number of characteristics one is supposed to use in these instances. I looked it up - - it's four.
One of my notes reads: "I met a respected old man by the side of the well who had only a ring of hair about his ears. His were kind enough eyes, and as he gestured to me to come closer I noticed he wore about himself the very plaid of my ancestry. This man, unknown to me was at least kin, and perhaps important." These are the types of notes I write along the way thinking I may need to expand my thoughts inside the writing. If I added all of these notes I would have another 20 pages to the manuscript, which would not be a bad thing.
I'm reading each line of each paragraph and I'm adding what is in my head as I go along, without consulting the 20 pages of notes! I need to consult them just in case I have already thought of something that would be a benefit to that particular paragraph. I really do need to be more disciplined in my manner of writing however I can't see how I could be more disciplined than I am now. I am such as taskmaster to myself. At least I allow myself breaks, walks, coffee, tea, etc. I'm not completely a shrew.
OK, so that's it. That's the update. I'm digging in, and I'm filling in. I'm taking out, and I'm rewriting. I'm on Chapter 4, and by this time tomorrow I'll be on Chapter 10 I think. We'll see. Whatever the outcome I know I'll take the time to do it right because I won't send the book off unless and until I satisfy my strictest critic; myself.
Photo Credit: Howtowiki31.blogspot.com
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