Progress Report

I'm almost done editing!!!

My God, I had so many questionable sentences and wonky dialogues in Chapter 2. I'm a bit embarrassed that it's been out for so long at this point 😩. But this is why editing is so important. A manuscript is really just a rough draft before it.

Because of the nature of IF — in which we write different variations of the same scene — sometimes, I can use the same words or descriptions multiple times without realizing it because I'm writing them out of order or I wrote one part on Monday, and the other on Friday, and I forgot what I wrote earlier. Basically, it can be quite messy, and easy to repeat some descriptions or even character gestures.

So, a big part of my work these last two weeks has been catching these errors and either re-writing them or erasing them altogether. I'm also naturally a descriptive writer, but in conversations, they can slow down the pace, so I've also been erasing a lot of unnecessary body language descriptions, environmental cues, overly wordy dialogue, and, in one case, a whole set of choices.

I was also able to work on Mist a bit more — as it happens with all characters that I'm not used to writing yet, in some parts he wasn't characterized quite how I wanted to. There were way too many instances where he smiled, for example. I think now, I have a better hang of how he moves and expresses himself, although I gotta give props to my past self, his dialogues have been the best ones in chapter 2 😄.

Alessa and Lance also had some adjustments. I guess only Hadrian was rock solid in this chapter 😋.

So far I've shaved off nearly 5k words from the chapter, and I'm estimating I'll erase 2k more before its end.

This is all to say that the work's been boring but it's been rewarding! I was proud to share the chapter when I finished coding it, but I'll be prouder still once it's truly finished.

I wasn't able to finish the edit in these two weeks, but I'll be editing on the weekend so, I'm pretty sure I'll finish by Tuesday.

I hope you had a great week! A friend of a friend found another lost kitten on the side of the road, so now, I have a two-month-old kitten annoying the hell out of my dog and older cat 😭. I love him already, though. ♡

See you soon!! 🌹

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Because some of you requested it, here's Óscar! I call him Oscar Wilde 😄. This was on the first week I got him. We think he was about 5 weeks old.

And this is him recently! ❤️