Y’all, my eyes are exhausted. Yes, it’s a thing. They are so tired, my husband told me to lay down for awhile. And why, you may ask? Well, remember how I was going to be done editing my book by last Friday? Yeah, that hasn’t happened. Not for lack of trying, I assure you. I have only spent this much time staring at a computer non-stop….hmm, the last time I was editing a book. And yet, somehow, I forgot exactly how much work it is.
So, long hours, aching eyes, and I’m still not positive that I’ll finish it by the end of even this week. I’m kind of disappointed in myself, but at the same time, considering how late I’ve been staying up every evening working, I technically know it’s not my fault. Just last night I was working until 11:30 PM. I’m currently working on weasel words, prepositional phrases, and making sure that emotions are being shown, not told. In the last two days I did word searches for 31 different words in my manuscript. And in so doing, I have combed through thousands of words, which I know because just by looking for and fixing those 31 words, I’ve reduced the manuscript by about 2,000 words. I have about 48 more words and phrases to go before I’m done with this portion of editing, so Daniel laughed at me when I claimed I could still be done by tonight. For good reason. There’s no way.
Anyway, once that’s all done, I still need to figure out my chapter divisions because I was terrible about that when I was first writing it, and then I need to print out the entire manuscript and read it out loud. Oh, and I think I’ve decided to partially rewrite the ending. Technically, I’m also supposed to go through each scene and make sure that all five senses are touched on in each, but I might just trust myself and send it off to the beta readers who are patiently waiting for the promised manuscript.
But for now, I’m diving back in.
Forest Idylls 