First Draft Completed!!!! That's right COMPLETE!!!!

Just finished the entire first draft for the first book of my story. Yep, all 42 chapters have been completely typed up and read over at least once. They've all been backed up multiple times and I'm feeling pretty good about them. I think most of these chapters are actually in really good shape for this stage. I recall feeling very apprehensive about a lot of these chapters when I wrote/typed them up (specifically this last third) and after reading them over and correcting them I see them in a new light. They weren't so bad when I was just reading them, if fact most of it was enjoyable (I kind of got into it a little at time, half forgetting I wrote it) and the parts that needed tweaking were tweaked and by doing so made the chapters much stronger (I think so anyways).

What's the next step for the book? It's a little foggy right now, but here's my plan (let's hope it just holds up). I plan to send out copies of the entire first draft to two people that I've asked to read it over and give me feedback, no mater how harsh it is (in fact, the harsher the better). Then, when I get the copies back and talk to these people, I plan to go over the whole book again taking into consideration their constructive criticism and improve what needs improving. Then I plan to print out this new spiffy version and completely tear into it with highlighters, pens and whatever writing equipment I can get my hands on (I wonder if I could find a use for a protractor, hmmm.....). Then when this new draft is all fixed up and dandy I think I'll have it looked at (by who I'm not sure yet) and then take their feed back and do one last correction (unless it seems to need a lot more work, but lets hope by this point it's looking pretty final).

So, yeah, that's my plan...we'll see if it turns out like that.

And some extra news, I think I may have finally decided on a name for the book series. I'm not going to reveal it just yet, (sorry) but I think I'll make the logo for the books and then post it in all it's (hopefully) awesomeness.

In a completely unrelated topic, I've seem to have come down with GLEE FEVER today. (Which is why I got so much work done today. The music will do that to you). Anyways I was a fan of it last year, it really surprised me how good it was and I was looking forward to this new season, but I didn't realize I'd get so excited for it to start. Yeah, just thought I'd mention this.

So here's the new updated progress report

Progress:

Title: ?%
 
Planning: 100%

First Draft Handwritten: 100%

First Draft Typed: 100%
 
Second Draft Typed: 0%

Well There you have it. I'll post back later.

Editing Abounds

So, I'm house sitting again and I've been using the time to do a little bit more work on the book. I've edited seven chapters over the last two days and have seven left to go. Granted there's still plenty of of editing for me to do after this, but I figure that will start once I get some feed back on them.

Surprisingly the chapters I read over seemed a lot less flawed than I thought there were after writing them. They were fairly clear and had a nice flow to them; granted there were still plenty of typos, run-on sentences and a few moments that needed clarifying, but all this seemed pretty minor, which I'm taking as a good thing.

I don't really know what my plan will be once I'm finished correcting these chapters. There are two people that are helping me to edit it so I'll be sending it off to them. I'm not sure if I'll sit around and do nothing while they read them or if I should start the basic planning of the second book. It's starting to get a little crazy how close I'm getting to finishing.

Well, I think I'm going to sign of now. I'll be sure to post back in a little while. I expect post to be scarce since there doesn't seem to be too much left to do.