Stage Three overlaps Stage Two, because–especially this time–there’s no reason to ignore 3rd level problems while reading aloud to someone from the computer screen (there is no print-out yet.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So if I find an entire paragraph that’s now redundant (a Stage Two problem) I just delete it,\u00a0 or a temporal-sequence problem,\u00a0 I mark that section in red and fix it when through reading, and if I find a typo (and boyoboy do I find typoes!)\u00a0 I fix it.\u00a0 Same with “infelicitous phrasing,”\u00a0 doubled doubled words, and so on.<\/p>\n
Every book *should* have (can easily have if you don’t have a submission deadline)\u00a0 at least three full length revisions: structural, constructional, surface polish.\u00a0 And also at least three readings: one of them voiced, out loud, two by readers with somewhat different ages\/backgrounds, etc.\u00a0 This time my original first-reader (Rancherfriend Ellen) can no longer read, because of severe macular degeneration, so I’ve been calling her up every day and reading a chapter or two to her, as I’ve finished that part’s stage two (or think I have.\u00a0 She was a superb first reader, and she notices even hearing the book that “you said that already last time–we don’t need that bit.”\u00a0\u00a0 This has been good for both of us.<\/p>\n
DRW (Readerfriend DavidW)\u00a0 is another first reader, and I’m about to go to R-, who has been busy with other things while I worked on it, and combines well as a stage 2 and stage 3 reader because he picks nits like nobody’s business as well as spotting deeper problems.\u00a0 He doesn’t read as fast anymore, though.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve also had another first-reader take sporadic looks at it, but she’s got a busy schedule otherwise: she edits, writes, and teaches workshops.<\/p>\n
I had wanted to be here two weeks ago, and would have been if not for the tooth problems and a few other complications in our lives, but I’m here now, and the book WILL go off to my agent this week (unless I croak.\u00a0 Always a consideration when over 75.)\u00a0\u00a0 The book is now sitting at 167, 273 words,\u00a0 and wandering up and down a few at every pass as I fill holes and trim off excess.\u00a0 Probably will go in to agent close to 170,000.<\/p>\n
Farrier comes today, in a couple of hours most likely, so this is just a quick update.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stage Three overlaps Stage Two, because–especially this time–there’s no reason to ignore 3rd level problems while reading aloud to someone from the computer screen (there is no print-out yet.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So if I find an entire paragraph that’s now redundant (a Stage Two problem) I just delete it,\u00a0 or a temporal-sequence problem,\u00a0 I mark that section Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,32,29,10],"tags":[55,58,30,7],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paksworld","category-progress","category-revision","category-the-writing-life","tag-paksworld-universe","tag-progress","tag-revision","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions\/1379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}