Excitement & frustration

Today marks my 42nd birthday. This doesn't excite me, phase me, or sadden me. It is just a number, the way 41 is just a number. What I am excited about, however, is the Zoom call I had yesterday - and the subsequent contracting of my very first professional editor since I started writing 32 years ago. After all the writing courses and masterclasses I did throughout the years, it feels as if only now am I taking steps to jump to that next level of my craft. Many writers have said that their first book was their way of learning how to write. Frequently, the experienced eye of an editor is the true trigger to elevate a manuscript from being ok to being great. And as it elevates the manuscript, it elevates you (well, me, hopefully) as a writer.

I have been working hard for over a year on this version of Blame The Dogs. Recently, some Advanced Readers provided me with valuable insights on that version. It turns out the pace needed to come down significantly. I have been working towards a better pace for the last 2 months, and I can see the manuscript grow out of its infancy and into a more mature state. This is great! The problem is, with the additional world-building, mood setting, voice adding, etc., the manuscript is growing out of the acceptable bounds of 100,000 words. The earlier version was at about 76,000 words, a perfect number to fine-tune and complete at 80,000 words - the desired length if you ask established publishing houses (and arguably bookstores). But the pace work I am now doing looks like it is going to push the word count to 110,000/120,000 words! I wasn't aware that I was capable of writing a novel to begin with, let alone a novel that would be considered too long according to industry standards! My editor is aware of this process taking place. Once I am ready, she will be getting this Arnold Schwarzeflipper of a book and will help me find ingenious ways to cut it back down to the maximum of 100,000 words.

Another frustrating thing I noticed a while back is that I had been doing quotation marks all wrong. The difference between the 'single' or "double" quotation marks meant I had to go back and change all accordingly, as I am publishing from the USA. As it turns out, single quotation marks are a UK thing; double marks are an American thing. I can think of more creative ways of spending my hours, but I'll just get stuck in and fix my stupid muck up. No matter what your job is, there are always aspects about it that you'd happily drop if you could, right?

Let me know what your recent 'forehead-slapping' moment was at work or home. I'd love to hear if you have done something kind of stupid and how you went about tackling the mistake. We're only human guys. ;-)

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