revisions continue

Whew! Four days since I made an entry. But the good news is, it’s because I’ve been writing up a storm and loving it.

FIRSTBORN:

Making editorial revisions isn’t always this much fun. Sometimes I have to struggle with balancing my vision for the book and who the characters are with what the editor needs/wants. But this time I’m in total sync with the requests.

The scenes I’m adding are brief and breezy, parts of the background story that I knew in my head as if I’d been there but hadn’t written. The trick is finding the right place to add these little nuggets.

As for the other changes, that’s the slower part. The need to add a line here or there to clarify an issue, or to change/cut something because of an earlier change/addition/deletion. That takes slow and careful reading. I live in fear that I’ll miss something and then my editor will miss it too and then, eight or ten months from now, a reader will catch it and write to me. Groan! I do hate it when that happens.

I have about 90 pages to go. Because I’ve got elders and their wives coming over this evening, I’m sure I’ll obsess about housework, so I may not finish these revisions until tomorrow. That will give me time for one last read through before I have to ship the manuscript back to the editor.

I don’t think I mentioned how much I like the Firstborn cover. I think it’s going to look terrific on the bookstore shelves.

DISTRACTIONS:

I’m part of the pastor search committee for my church. All the resumes are coming to me. Keeping up with this, organizing and making copies for the rest of the committee, then our weekly meetings — it’s all taking a chunk out of my week. But I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I feel really blessed to be a part of this, to seeing God at work, even to reading all of these resumes by men of God seeking to serve the Lord. We only need one pastor and God knows who he is. We are just part of the process to find him.

Originally posted on Diaryland