About Those Edits

With heavy revisions done comes the final phase for a WIP -- the edits. The time where you get to spend hours debating over comma placement, verb usage, and page formatting.

Yay.

So, not the most exciting part of writing is it? No. Admittedly not.

My first thought when I got to this stage was: How can I make this more exciting?

The answer? Having the whole MS printed and bound. It has a cover page and all! It cost me about $30 at Office Depot to have the whole thing printed on good quality paper, comb bound, with card stock front and back covers. Not too shabby. I also bought myself a new red pen.

I get so excited over office supplies. I can't help it.

Something I read a while back that I put to use for these edits -- before I printed the pages, I changed the font. I had read on kidlit.com once that changing the font can trick your eyes into seeing more errors because you're not used to the way it looks.

It works! For real!

What do you all do to get excited over edits? Just push through or try and make it fun?

It's really so interesting to go back and read the whole story through. There were even parts that surprised me -- that I'd forgotten about. It's surreal. I still find it odd to say, "I've written a book." To go back and read the whole thing -- well, it's just plain amazing.

Now, back to being a nervous wreck about making sure it is perfect. My goal is to have it done by Sunday so it can go through one final beta read-through before the conference.