In December of 2020, a book agent told me my book was perhaps 20,000 words too short. There was some other story bits they commented on which, upon further review, I also noticed. I spent the first five months of 2021 reworking and rewriting the book. Then, come June, I began the process of 2nd draft edits which, for me, involve printing it out and going through it with a red pen.

Yesterday, in an afternoon-long editing session, I finished this draft of Project: GREY, my middle-grade science fiction adventure.

So what comes next?

The 3rd draft is both incredibly simple with the chance of complexity. I type up all the changes I made in red pen. Easy, right? Well, within those changes are a few notes that need to be elaborated on. Things that I couldn’t fit within the margins of the page. “What does such-and-such a character mean here?” or “Don’t forget to explain what this means here.” Stuff that’s important, but impossible to fit on in a few inches of space. It’s within those moments that I’ll either know exactly what I was thinking of or I’ll think, “What the hell do I put there?”

Anyway, I feel great. Going to put it away for a week while I jump back into Project: DEED, my middle-grade realistic fantasy, I haven’t worked on in three weeks.

That’s right.

Three weeks.

If I think about it too much I’ll cry BUT THAT’S WHY WE MOVE ON FROM IT RIDE THE MOMENTUM ROBERT BECAUSE I JUST FINISHED EDITING A BOOK.

Thanks for reading,

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