Well, it's technically not the end of June nor the beginning of July but as I don't tend to blog on weekends unless it's October, I'm going to write this post today. I assume you'll forgive me.
For anyone new to the blog or for anyone just needing a reminder, Are You Writing Now? is a group whose purpose is accountability. At the beginning of each month, members create and post a set of writing goals to be reached by the end of the month. Then, at the end of each month, we post just how well we did with those goals.
And, like last month, I'm merging these two things into one post.
Here's the goal (yes, as in singular) I set for June:
1. Correct all the minor fixes.
As I said last month, I had put a copy of my novel onto my Kindle and was in the process of combing it for mistakes, big and small. At the time of my post, I had eleven and a half pages of minor fixes to make. When I finished my read-through, that number ballooned to twenty. Twenty pages that looked like this:
So how did I do with this goal, you ask yourself? Well, if you saw my post on June 7th, you'll already know the answer because I. Did. It.
That's right. I actually accomplished a goal.
(Pause for shock and awe.)
Then after I finished making my twenty pages of corrections, I handed the book off to a trio of new beta readers. The ritual worrying quickly set in but within a week, I had not one but two betas who had made it all the way through the book. (the third, as far as I know, is still reading) If you're familiar with my sad, sad history with betas, you'll know just what a cause for celebration that is. It was made even better when neither of them came back with, "Yeah, you should probably give up the writing thing in favor of flipping burgers or something."
They didn't hate it! Go me!
But neither did they find the book to be as flawless as I like to think it is. Which leads me to my goals for the coming month:
1. Complete yet another round of "final edits" (I do not think that phrase means what I think it means...).
2. Stop frakking things up so I can stop with the rounds of "final edits"
One of these days, I'm bound to get it right. Right?
RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?
Best of luck to my fellow #AYWN participants...