I had an extra long weekend with Canada Day falling on a Tuesday. Four glorious days off. Granted the weather didn’t cooperate until yesterday, but that was fine. Yesterday definitely made up for it with heat and sunshine and no fog in the harbour so we could sit on Citadel Hill, watch the sunset and then be electrified by the fireworks extravaganza. It was a great end to a fabulous weekend.But now that the little mini-vacation is over, I need to buckle down and get back to work. I am hoping to finish writing the new scenes and typing in the majority of the revisions for Brimstone into my manuscript by Sunday. I’d like to start the final read through by next week. Then off it goes to the editor no later than July 16th (ish). Somewhere in there I have to pull together a dreaded synopsis but I’m hoping the one I already have roughed out will cut down on the time it takes to write the new one.
Another thing I did this weekend was browse Chapters. Granted, I do this almost every weekend but this time they had restocked their Writing/Publishing section with some great books (finally!) and I picked up Revisions & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell. Its part of the Write Great Fiction series. This book is great. I’m only ⅓ of the way through it but I really wish I’d had it before I started my revisions. If I wasn’t in such a time crunch to get Brimstone out to the editor I’d be tempted to go through it one more time with the tips learned in this book.
On the plus side, while the book is focused on Revisions and Self-Editing, the tips in it will help me make a much stronger first draft of Saving Grace, Book 2 in the Brimstone series, not to mention make cleaning up Outlaw Bride that much easier. And hopefully quicker. Oh dear God, please make it quicker…
So for my fellow compatriots – what did your Canada Day weekend involve? And for those of you below the border – any big plans for the July 4th holiday?
