The second pass of my novel edit is finished. It’s an improvement, definitely, which is something I was a little concerned about, having grown so used to how it was before. I think the distance I had gained from not reading it for a year and a half helped. Plus, even though I still wasn’t writing much in that time, I feel that my writing improved a lot. It’s not a technical proficiency thing, it’s an attitude thing – one that I can’t put my finger on exactly, but I feel it when I write now. There is still the chance that I’m so attached to some things there to see that they need to be done again from scratch. These edits weren’t structural, because I don’t feel that structural edits are needed, but I could be wrong.

So.

If I’m being honest, an external editor is needed. Not because there is necessarily anything wrong with what I have, but because I know I have blind spots and I have to allow for that. I’ve had a few offers. I don’t need someone to read it to offer opinions or check spelling, though, I need someone to read it with scalpel in hand, whilst still understanding what this story and these characters mean to me. I only trust one person with that job. Which means that, for now, I’m going to tag this one as work in progess. Don’t give up hope, the novel is closer to seeing the light of day than it ever has been, but I want this done properly.

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I’m not sure if anyone’s following this show or not, but if you are you will have noticed that the new website layout is up and going strong. Categories have been purposely separated into ‘Blog’ and ‘Stories’, so you can just track one or the other if you wish, and the story blog is getting (so far) a post a day. The only restriction I’m putting on myself at this point is that at least one hundred words get posted to it every day, but for now that schedule is just for me, not any potential readers I may or may not have. Some of the pieces fit together, and are categorised as such. Some don’t fit together yet, some never will.

On that note, I have a story post to write.