There's all this stuff in my head...: Writing Done the Bones: How Many Times Do You Edit the Book?

Okay so it looks like I fell off the planet. Promise - I'm still here. The last four years have been ... hard. There's no other word for it. Everything is fine. I'm fine, but I've been the caregiver of my mom who has Dementia. Between her needs, work, etc I seem to have lost control of my time. I am still writing and am trying hard to get back to my blog.

In case you weren't aware Phaze and HSWF which where under the Mundania Umbrella have closed. I was smart enough to get my titles back before all this happened. I'm happy to say the three books I sold to HSWF have been picked up by Melange Books and are available through their Satin Books imprint. I have even sold a new title to them called Magical Quest due out in 2022

I have also been lucky enough to find a publisher for my Vespian Way series. I'm now with Blushing Books under the name of Bethany Drake. I have five titles out with them right now and am close to submitting two more. There's Desire's Destiny, Desire's Duty and Desire's Promise. Then there is two in my werewolf series, Tears of the Queen and Legend of the Tears. I have just finished the rough draft of the third book in the series and have plans for a fourth one the moment I submit it.

I'll probably still be sporadic here on the blog. Unless I win the lottery and can hire someone to help me I can't avoid it, but know I'm still here still working hard in the background and am hoping to do better at keeping my blog alive.

Barb:)

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Writing Done the Bones: How Many Times Do You Edit the Book?

Now that is a question isn't it. Once you have it written you start the editing process. You clean it, and polish it over and over. But it just doesn't feel finished. You're tired of looking at it. You just want to send it off but...you don't feel good about doing that.

When is enough enough? I remember being at a program given by my local RWA chapter. The person running it said we're done when we're so tired of editing it we want to throw the book against the wall.

I think that's a good time to stop.

Each book is going to be different. Some of my books only needed a little editing, but the one I'm working on now needs a lot. I think I'm going for my fourth or fifth run through. I tried many ways to cut down the process but have found that writing that rough draft then fleshing it out works the best for me - it just some books need more flesh than others.