Back!

Although I was never really gone, my pretties. I am, however, officially twenty five years old. As I age, I solace myself by knowing that no matter how old I get…I’ll always be five and a half years younger than my sister.

It’s important to keep things in perspective.

Anyway, in writing news: I completed the first draft of my newest WIP, a YA/Dystopian with a sci-fi bent titled GLITCH. It took a lot longer than I planned, over four months. Not the book’s fault. Crappy life stuff got in the way and there were some days I sat down in front of the computer and couldn’t hammer out gibberish. It’s tough sometimes.

But draft one is done. Now it’s time to sit back, take a writing break, and plan how I’m going to edit this thing. During previous down time, I actually made a list of things to do:

Editing

---Perfunctory read through, grammar check.

---Outline, include continuity check.

---Read aloud.

---Highlight adverbs and –ing words.

---Color partition. Check for not enough action, too much information/backstory.

---Words: there, though, although, before, after, once, at least, then, while, almost, even, what, pretty, how, just, only, probably, that, since, as, like, so, some, when, seem, been, could, would, should, I, we, ’re, n’t, ’s, ’d, ’ve, be, is, are, am, I’m, was, were, we’re, keep, kept, got, get, had, has, felt, feel, think, thought, try, tried, tries, may, might, grew, grow, look, found, find, knew, know, become, became, smell, sense, hear, come, came, go, goes, went, taste, see, saw, watch, believe

---In depth grammar check.

---Beta reads.

If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s making lists and organizing. There’s obviously going to be more rounds of editing after the beta reads, but that’s going to depend on what I hear. It’s probably going to be a while before to those anyway : ).

Now I’m going to throw it back to you guys: how do you edit? Am I missing anything important?