Current book – writing: Sword & Illusion
Number of chapters declared DONE – Sixteen
Number of chapters waiting for Beloved’s final read – Two
Chapter working on – None as I’m far enough ahead with totally new stuff that I don’t want to move on until he’s read what’s waitng
Current book – reading – Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson Amber was an actress on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which, of course, as everyone knows is one of my favorites, given that Joss created and wrote it. Anyway, I just recently realized that Amber was also a writer, so I decided to read this book. I’ll let you know what I think. So far, I like it, and for the FTC, let me say I got it from the library (I probably owe a fine on it, too) so I’m not shilling for her!

As you can see from the above I’m ahead of Beloved in the editing of Sword & Illusion, so I’m trying to find a way to keep writing without actually starting something new.

“Why?” you ask.

Well, the truth is I have so many books already started and two of them I finished years ago but never sent them out because I know they need fixing.

The problem is that I’ve never been good at editing myself, and I don’t know anyone I can ask to read a whole book and comment on it for me.

I’ve picked the oldest one, a marriage of convenience story called For the Love of Ivy, and I’m attempting to edit it. This is a contemporary romance. It probably won’t be an inspirational, though. It will be written under Nancy S. Brandt’s name. I know when I started it I went back and forth as to whether it would be an inspirational or not, but I think this one will just be a traditional sweet romance. We’ll see what the characters think once I dig into it.

I’m the kind of writer who has to just get the whole book written before I do any editing so I know where I’m headed. So, I know this is a rough draft and I have to chisel out the story from the junk that’s here.

It’s an old book, so I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff I need to totally re-do and I’m a better writer than when I did this so I need to polish and try not to cringe as I read this stuff.

Any other writers out there understand what I’m saying? I’m going to go through the whole thing and try to find if there are any nuggets of gold I can rebuild the story around.

I’m determined to get this book done!

On another note, I’m challenging myself to try to write 2000 words a day, although with editing, a full chapter (approx. 20 pages) edited is considered for my purposes as 2000 words.