The Daily Grind

My last post was a celebration of the completion of my first draft! I set a goal for myself to work the the first round of edits by 4/17, and although I didn't mark the day, I did complete marking up my first book portion of the manuscript by around that time period. I have slowed WAY down in making those edits on my writing software, so that part of things still isn't complete. There is no way I can have that done by 5/1 as I had tentatively planned, so my new goal is to make all the changes I've marked out by 5/8. Unless something else crazy happens (like an additional pandemic or something? I don't know...) I should have no problem meeting that deadline.

The other noteworthy decision I have made is that I'm currently treating my enormous first draft as three books. I mentioned last time that I was throwing the idea around. I'm still slightly suspicious of that decision, but at this point, the manuscript breaks perfectly into three book sized sections, that read well as self contained entities. So for now, I'm going with it. Once I get the first "book" out to beta readers, their reactions will factor into how I proceed.

The daily grind! That's exactly how this feels. I don't mind editing, but it's a bit of a slog for me. My working style is like a long transcontinental flight. A long runway to take off, then a marathon of work, then a long runway back to reality. It takes me a little while to settle into a task, but once I've wrapped my head around what I'm doing, I want to focus on it for a long time, or complete it if possible. The thing is, that's not possible. And it's compounded by the fact that any noise at all is distracting to me on some level, and my kids and husband are home all day. So you can say my working conditions are not ideal. You could also say, suck it up buttercup!

Forward progress has been slower, but it's also been a good time of bonding for our family. The first two weeks of our shelter in place timeline were ROUGH, but after that we settled into a new routine and we've all been doing a lot better. I've also adjusted my expectations drastically, which although hard for me to do, has lowered my stress level. Now, I'm off to try and complete at least one more page of editing before my writing time expires!