As I am waiting for my editor to get my WIP back to me, I’m working with an editing client–more ghost-writing, actually–doing research into the types of books he will be competing with. I’m also reading some really great books.
Box of books arrived!
As predicted, I started the course I’m teaching and began work with a new client. I’m also judging for an award program (adult fiction) and got a box of books this week, so I’ve begun reading. I like the opportunity judging awards gives me to broaden my reading–these are literary, not spec-fic awards.
Nice milestone
I finished my read-through of The Shadow Spy’s Wife and submitted it to a freelance editor. It still has issues, but the editor will do 2 passes. This week: plan a new course I’m teaching (starting Tuesday!) and dig out a bunch of stuff around the house. I don’t get the novel back for a couple of weeks, and the glut of editing clients I was expecting in January seems to be only one person so far, and I don’t start with him until Thursday.
January looks busy
Finished the back-and-forthing on Shadow Spy’s Wife and began the final read-through. If I do 10 chapters a day, I can finish in 7 days. After day 1: I’m on track! Because I got a grant to write this book, I’m using some of the money to get a professional edit, and about 9 months ago I booked it for next week. I think I’ll be ready to hand it over.
Then I have to get back to editing clients. Only one contacted me so far this week, but I have 4 projects that will all start this month. I like to focus on one at a time, two at most, but people who missed deadlines in the fall are telling me they’ll be ready for January. My first priority is to the people I scheduled for January, of course, but I still feel pressure (from myself, mind) to give all of them a reasonable turn-around. So, it will be good to have my novel in someone else’s hands for a couple of weeks.
In addition, I’m teaching 2 courses–again, I usually only teach one–and both are new to me, courses I haven’t taught before, so that means more prep. And I agreed to judge an award. Yikes. January will be interesting.
Working on Shadow Spy revisions
This week I got through the critiques for The Shadow Spy’s Wife, including all the track changes and either dealing with comments or putting them into a document for larger revisions–organized with the comments framed in the positive (what I can do, rather than what’s not working) and redundancies cut. I’ve done the recommended interleaving of stories and am just starting to put the notes for necessary changes into the scene in which I need to make that change.
This week: do the actual revisions. I’ve booked myself a week to do that phase, then a week for a final read-through, but that might be a stretch goal. We’ll see.