Bam!

Bam! In my last post, I mentioned that I’d started editing the sequel to First. Yes, I did. In fact, I finished the initial run-through on Saturday. Yeah, I probably could have done yardwork, but instead I spent several hours working on the book. I have to say, it was in better shape than I thought and expected to spend a few months on it. Instead, I shored up some of the weak points yesterday and today and we’ll see where that leaves things. Why is this so different from when I pulled Assignment Day out of the virtual drawer and spent more than two months editing it? Let’s take a little ride in the wayback machine, shall we? I’d like to chalk it up to experience, so let me explain. I wrote First and spent a LOT of time editing it, but also learning a lot. In between that writing and learning, I wrote the draft of Assignment Day. I published First and then edited Next Time. By the time I returned to Assignment Day, I’d learned a lot and realized I had to fix a lot of things to make it a better book. That translated to writing this draft for the sequel to First, where I spotted problems as they arose. That leads to less major editing in the future. Experience paid off in a creating a draft that is probably closer to the finished product than anything else I’ve written. The other piece of why it’s in good shape is due to the multiple false starts I had in trying to create the sequel. I had at least three attempts in putting together a storyline that I liked, failing miserably each time. It wasn’t until this last go-around that the mixture came out right and the magic happened. All of those factors combined into a book that I think is pretty darn good. Hopefully I don’t ruin it by tinkering with it too much.