Just When You Think You're Done

As many of you are chugging away at NaNoWriMo, trying to get those 50,000 words out, I'm at the other end, wrapping up the very last round of proofing. I really don't think, if the timing would have been better, I would have had a problem with NaNoWriMo.

Rough drafts - or what I call brain-dump, word puke - come easy to me. The ideas and words come so fast, I can't keep up with them. The voices talk to me All. Day. Long. so by the time I get to write at night, I'm on a dead run, making every night a writing marathon.

The problem with my madness is that it requires seemingly endless revisions, editing, re-writing, more revisions, polishing, proofing... You get the idea. Although I do a little editing as I go along, the first draft is pretty much garbage. When I first started writing what is now Promise and Purpose, I actually became sad as I reached the end of a round of revisions. But then I would cheer myself up by remembering that I got to start all over. Yeah, I was kind of sick.

That was 34,613 revisions ago. I'm still sick. Sick of this damn book! Okay, just kidding. Sort of. I'm just ready to be done. Ready to move on to the next book. Ready to start real writing again. And I thought I was there. Purpose had been critted, reviewed, revised, edited, polished, proofed, formatted and sent to the printer for proofs and ARCs.

I knew it wasn't perfect, that it still needed a final proofing because those dang typos pop up when no one's looking, as if the letters play musical chairs while I sleep. I expected some fixes. By the time my proofers and I were done, I had this:

Yes, each of those pretty, colorful flags is a mistake. Seriously. And ARCs had already been sent out to reviewers. Ugh. How embarrassing! Thankfully, there's a disclaimer in the front stating that this book has not been proofed. But still...

So those fixes have been made, but there were so many, I needed the book proofed one more time. I'm waiting, holding my breath, for that final file to come back. Then hopefully I can really call this book done.

As you write your NaNoWriMo novel or whatever WIP you're working on, enjoy the journey. Because it's one that never ends. And if you want to trade places, give me a holler. I'm so ready to write again!