Wednesday, June 29, 2016

I'm tinker crazy

First, let me start off by saying “I’m sorry,” to anyone that has bought a copy of my book. I read it this weekend to tie up any loose ends from book one in book two, and I found one plot problem, which I have fixed. I am mortified. But I really am sorry. It is not my editor’s fault. She did a superb job. The one mistake was something I had changed after she gave me my final edited manuscript, so only I am to blame.

Secondly, I have not done audio for this post. In fact, I’m not sure if the audio is such a good idea anymore. I didn’t think about how much time it would take. Today one of our neighbors kept revving his engine like a racecar driver and I just couldn’t clean up the audio enough to block him out, so I gave up. I literally spent four hours trying to make a recording for one post. I might do a few more audio posts in the future, but maybe not one for every post. I’m sorry if I am disappointing anyone.

Okay, on to today’s post.

I am not only my own worst enemy, but I can also be my own worst distraction.

I have the bad habit of writing the same book over and over.

Meaning, I tinker too much with it. A normal person would write the first draft and a few days or weeks later, start on the second draft, which means adding more detail, or taking out the unnecessary words, if you had over written.

Not me. No. I feel the first draft is in too bad a shape (which it’s supposed to be) and start over. Keeping the main plot, but just rewriting everything else. That would explain why it took me over 5 years to publish my first book. I kept writing the same book over and over. You don’t even want to know how many drafts I have of the first book. Okay, I will tell you, over thirty drafts.

The bad news is that I have done it with the second book too. Luckily, I really like where the newest draft is going, and I’m almost halfway through. I actually intend to keep this draft and clean it up, I swear :) Then it’s just a matter of adding more detail and then my rounds of self-editing will commence. I think that will take quite a while too.

The good news is that I now know that I tinker too much on my manuscripts. I should write the first draft and make improvements from there. Don’t write the same damn book over and over. I feel like I can kick myself. Now it’s just a matter of stopping myself when I want to keep changing things.

Do you tinker a lot too?

Not quite myself

I have no idea why, but I have not been feeling like myself. Even being in my own skin feels alien.  The good news is that I still managed t...