I have some big news! I’m 16 weeks pregnant! (The baby is 13 weeks in this picture)
My husband and I want the gender to be a surprise so we are trying to come up with girls and boys names we like. It’s a lot more difficult than I would have thought. I like names that have meaning and when you think about naming a human being it makes the responsibility a serious one. The baby is due February 8th so I am hoping to get my book Silver Blood all polished up before then.

For the past month or so I have been working with my sister in-law who is expecting a baby this December. She has a Masters in English and has been extremely helpful with editing. In fact, she’s been doing most of the work. I recommend her skills! We will be finishing up soon. I had hoped this to be the last big over-haul before sending out query letters to publishers but I recently read a chapter on editing in the book “From Inspiration to Publication.” put out by Writer’s Institute Publications. It mentioned some things to look out for in a manuscript that I had not thought of before. So I fear I shall have to tackle my book with editing one more time.

There’s a quote from a friend of mine that makes me laugh and sums up how I feel about editing:

“Writing is the fun part, editing makes you wonder what was wrong with you when you wrote it…” – Karoline Bondyra

Editing is not my favourite part of writing. However, in the past few months I’ve slowly enjoyed watching my story get better and better. I have learned to love thinking of new ways to improve it. I’ve learned that there’s fun in improving, not just creating.

Is there any part of writing that you did not like but have learned to enjoy?

*Gasps for breath* Well, I’ve been running a marathon! An editing one, that is.

Yesterday I realized, to my despair, that I had to do some major editing in certain areas of my book “Silver Blood.” Cutting, pasting, fitting, dissecting, ect. Or, as I told my husband “I am going to preform surgery!”

It is very difficult to completely remove an element from a book. In my case I had to remove a character (minor but scattered throughout the book) and move information from the middle of the book to the back.

Airith, one of my main characters, falls in love with X-Sayda, the wild daughter of an Outland chieftain. She encourages Airith but then betrays him by marrying someone else for power. After her husband is poisoned (suspicious, anyone?) she decides that she wants Airith after all. By then he has realized what sort of person she really is and refuses her. Though the Witch Queen encourages Airith to marry her to gain power and influence.
Originally X-Sayda is only met or mentioned a few times in the book, her and Airith’s past relationship is only hinted at.

I decided: “I should add more of their relationship to the book.” So I did.
Then I realized: “By adding all these extra parts I am making my word count higher than I want. And how am I supposed to make this all time-consistent?”
So I said: “I’ll just take her out completely!” Then I realized she was involved intricately in a major part of the book. So….I made her a minor part again. Sigh.

Have you ever had to remove parts from your book/writing or add parts that gave you grief?