Yesterday, I just finished my first round of edits on Counting Raindrops. The way I see it, I have two more rounds to go. I was quite surprised that Leslie, my editor, didn’t change a whole lot. There were quite a few clean and untouched pages! LOL I guess I was expecting changes and red marks everywhere! In this first round, I just went through and incorporated the line edits (word changes, punctuation, etc.). In round two, I’ll create the story changes agreed on with the editor. In round three, I’ll incorporate my own story enhancements.
The publisher and editor kept saying how much they loved the story. Hmmm…I guess they really did! LOL The funny thing is that there are a few things that I plan to change or, I should say, enhance. I was surprised that these didn’t come up with the editor. Maybe I’m harder on myself than others? I don’t know. On the other hand, some of the ideas from enhancement are actually from readers. There are two things that I heard from almost EVERYONE who read the book and I want to touch on that a little more in the re-writes. I’m so thankful for this opportunity. While self-publishing has been hard, I think this is one of the advantages. As a first time novelist, I’ve had a chance to “test” my product with the readers and get their feedback. While you can NEVER write a story that will please everyone, I do have the opportunity to strengthen areas that were pointed out by a majority of the readers.