Monday, July 22, 2013

Woohoo, a whole chapter!

So I'm pretty psyched about how well this is going.  Knowing I need to report the amount of pages I've edited each day keeps it in the back of my mind.  So when I have a free minute or two, I try and dedicate it to editing.  Not only that, but now when I'm reading a book or listening to an audiobook, I'm constantly thinking about my own manuscript and feeling a desire to quit reading and continue editing.  It's like that feeling that drives you to finish reading a book, but my mind is putting that desire toward my own manuscript.  What an awesome way to feel motivated.  Like it isn't a chore, but an actual hobby and something to feel proud of/excited about. 

Anyway, today I edited FIVE pages.  A whole chapter (which is about 10 book sized pages...like I've said before, the pdf I'm editing from fits a lot more words per page than a printed book would).  So I'm at:

56 of 155

And I think I stopped the handwritten edits around Chapter 16 or 17, so I'm only about 5 chapters away from catching up with myself (I made edits and sometimes they're easy 'missing comma' type edits, and other times they're more time consuming and general 'fix' type edits, which take way more time).  Once I catch up with myself, I need to:

  • Compress the whole file again with the edits from Scrivener into a new PDF. 
  • Upload that PDF back to Goodreader.
  • Start reading/editing the actual manuscript again.
  • Send that back to Scrivener and open the PDF side by side with the actual manuscript to type out the edits.
  • Finish this whole round of edits (I can't wait).
  • Make a kindle file of this draft of the book.
  • Reread the whole book from start to finish while taking just general overall notes. 
  • Reedit (hopefully with much less tedious fixes).

That is, unless Scrivener comes out with an iPad version of their program before I catch up with myself.  I can't wait until that day comes!  No more converting to PDF, editing, then putting files side by side...just make the edits directly to the manuscript on my iPad...the convenience factor there makes my mouth water.

I'm feeling good about this though! 

And I've started working on ideas for a new YA Dystopian (I don't care if publishers don't want dystopian right now...it's such a cool theory to consider...especially with all the changes technology brings to cultures...imagining what our future is going to look like is fun).  I'm using the Index Card app for that, and I'm really enjoying it.  It also syncs with Scrivener (but only through the Mac version of Scrivener, which is a bummer, because I'm using my PC far more often lately).  I have the app on both my iPhone and my iPad and, annoyingly enough, the files don't automatically sync between the apps.  If I upload them to Dropbox, I can then make sure the files stay constant between both, but I have to do that manually, and it's frustrating.  So I am mostly just using this app on my iPhone and jotting down ideas when I think of them.

I guess that's enough for this blog post...I made a short story long.

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