If you had asked me before I wrote the book how many chapters it would have, I would have said the standard, maybe 30. I think I do 30 and think it's a good-sized book. If I do 29 or 28, they'll be longer and more detailed chapters. Can you imagine if I wrote a book with only one chapter? OMG...don't get me started. I may do that! That may have to happen. There are 33 chapters in this book.
So, I'm finishing the last sentence of the chapter today, and it hits me that this is the next to the last chapter. I have one left. That's it, only one. I need to wrap the book up, skim its entire word base and give off enigmatic time bombs, talk about this or that sort of thing that takes place, and then pull it all together with something that's been threading through it the entire time. I do that.
I'll do that tomorrow. I'll finish the book tomorrow, right after work. I'm taking off at 12:00 tomorrow, so I'll write the last chapter then and start going through it for places I can fluff and stuff it. I'll fluff and stuff all evening and part of Saturday, then go through it for spacing, size, yada-yada, and then Sunday, I'll read it all the way through, making sure I didn't miss some of the things I wanted to say or needed to say, and I'll go through it that last time for grammar and punctuation issues.
I love Grammarly, but it can actually mess me up, too. It writes and speaks a little differently than I do, to say the least. My writing is my writing, and if I'm using the words "own" and "a bit" too often - so be it. I have to go through the book for random words, which I usually say. I have weaned myself off the "really" and "actually" because I know the AI will catch those; it rips me a new one when I do it. I laugh, but then again, I snarl, too.
I have 30 pages of notes to go through the book with, to put this or that statement, thought, adjective, tale, or nugget into the book to make it just that much more whatever; it's what I do. I don't save the best for last, but I do a lot of spicing up at the end, and I'm always happy when I get through the process. The book will be ready to publish or sent up for publishing on schedule, making September 1 the publishing date. I'll need to do a final version after it's printed and after I go back over it, but the print date and the publishing date are very different. People can buy it on the print date...it's out there in the universe on the publishing date.
I will announce the title on Sunday when it's been sent up for publishing - - I don't think the title makes me nervous, but I will say that it's a good title; I like it. I really, actually like it. (See what I did there? Ha! Take that, AI!)
Photo Credit:Popoptiq.com
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