editing – Griffin's Nest

Yes, I’m doing two days today instead of one. That’s because I was so busy yesterday I totally forgot to post about NaNoWriMo and my writing project. It had crossed my mind I could write two separate posts and try to pass one off as having been written, but I couldn’t. I am trying to build a rapport, one of trust and mutual respect with a flavoring of ideas and events we both enjoy. I can’t do that if I lie, and the time stamp would easily make a liar out of me. So, I’m merging the two posts into one…

Monday, 9 November

I wrote 3,550 words bringing my overall total on that day to 34,836. I’ve begun tweaking the formatting of the chaptters as I write too. I made the paragraph indentation too wide in the first 8 chapters using a one inch indent. I’m going to fix those chapters while continuing on with the standard half inch indent from now on.

There wasn’t a write-in scheduled for today by anyone so completed my writing for the day and began researching how to make a simple loom for when I start learning how to weave. I’ll also be able to use if for macrame I do believe. 🙂

Tuesday, 10 November

I wrote 3,538 words today bring my total for my project to 38,374. I made notes on where I want to add a scene and where I want to split the chapter into two separate chapters. It will help things to flow smoothly and no slow down too much. I’m not happy I didn’t write more, but there’s still time for the additions I have planned once I get the initial goal reached.

I missed today’s write-in because I was busy doing research on industry in the 1930s in New York. I like to have some reality woven into my stories. It gives them more depth, I think. Anyway, I was reading and taking notes, forgetting all about the write-in until it was over. There’s a replay, but the live show is more entertaining and helpful.

I did fix the formatting on the first two chapters – it was niggling at me to do so. I didn’t want to forget to do it and end up with a mess like I’m dealing with in regards to Crimson Knight.

That’s all for today folks, I’ll see you on the flipside so don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!!!

So, last week, I ended up with three days off, and I spent most of that time catching up with housekeeping and some other projects that had been neglected of late due to my work schedule. One of these projects was me cleaning out my huge amount of email.

One of the emails I received while I was offline was a notification of things happening over on Kindle Direct Publishing. I moved to them when they merged with Create Space. I was initially told all my published work would be seamlessly moved over and would be available from Amazon just like before.

Well, this new email made this all a lie. Apparently, the site has changed publishing applications so everything from CreateSpace is no longer compatible. Of course. Knew something like this was going to happen. So, I started with the ebook I had been making before I went offline. The program for this is not that user friendly, and I got frustruated with it after working on it for several hours. I decided to leave it alone and go back to it on my next day off.

As luck would have it, I worked one day and was off again yesterday. I managed to figure out the issue I’d been having with the ebook creator program and completed the ebook – finally. It’s now available of Amazon. Yay me. Anyway, I began work on the release of the novel the ebook is for: Crimson Knight.

First off, neither of the programs used to create the print version of my novel is user friendly. The book cover creator program also forces you to use templates that are quite limited. I tried to use my old cover and found no option for that – if anyone finds it please let me know! After I finally got the cover made, I turned to the program used to actually create the book – you have to upload your manuscript initially and then do some other things before it will accept your book for publishing.

I am now having formatting issues from hell. My own manuscript is great, but it looks awful on KDPs previewer even after I’ve followed the guidelines for saving, formatting, sizing etc. I messed with it for hours before giving up and saving it for my next day off. That should be Sunday, and I’ll let you know what happens when it does. Wish me luck.

That’s it for this post, folks. I’ll see you on the flipside and don’t forget your towel and sonic screwdriver!