The End's In Sight

I can hardly believe this, but I may actually be able to finish this rewrite by the end of August. I know I've had to adjust my deadlines several times during the last few months, but I think this time is really the last time. The reason I think this is that I've nearly finished the changes for Chapter 15, and I've examined Chapters 18, 19, and 20 and already made a few of the necessary minor tweaks to them to get them to agree with what's already happened. Chapter 17 may also fall into that same category, which pretty much leaves me with Chapter 16 to edit, and then we're in business.

I need to finish editing the one scene left in Chapter 15, which I'll do tonight. If there's time, I'll also start work on Chapter 16. The only possible things that might remain to do for 17-20 are minor changes to the conversations between my hero and heroine, which will probably take place over the next few days, and then I'll probably fall over in shock at actually being done. I'll need to run the finished book past the Moxie for one last read-through, and then it's off to Bob, finally. He's told me in the past that my skill with rewriting is one of my strengths, so we'll see how I did on this one.

I started out in early March with very little idea of what to do to fix the middle of my book. Between that and the family's time vs school issues, this rewrite took me a lot longer than I'd have preferred. I know that if I'd had a hard publisher's deadline, this would have been a recipe for disaster. So I will be taking steps to make sure this never happens again. I don't know how long a publisher usually gives an author to edit a novel, but I get the feeling it's probably measured in weeks, rather than months. This spring and summer definitely didn't go as planned, but I will manage things better from here on out, rather than letting things manage me.