It happened yesterday morning at about 7:15am with a cat occupying my lap and a coffee cup at my side. I scratched out the last edits to the 86,000 words of Coffee Smuggler. I stand in awe before the powers of my editor who rehashed my writing with me for dozens of hours in the past two weeks. Learning to edit (well) has been like learning Tai Chi in that it requires patience and diligence to hone intricate movements that I've done many times before.
Editing the book for a tenth time was sometimes excruciating. The focus required for few hours of editing leaves me mentally exhausted; like after taking the SATs. Writing my first draft was like building the shed. Editing ten drafts over 5 years has been like taking a poorly built shed apart, modifying the design/materials slightly and putting it back together ten times over, each time a little better built. I'm now satisfied in saying that this book is the best I could make it under the constraints at hand.
The next step is to translate these paper edits to my digital manuscript. I hope this will go quickly. It has to! I will add about twenty illustrations to the text. I'm excited about these. I think old maps, etchings, and paintings of the real places, events, and characters from Coffee Smuggler will add to the story. Then I'll finish my bibliography, add my title page and the manuscript will stand completed.
Next I appeal to professionals to finish designing the cover/jacket and formatting the book files for paperback, hardcover, and ebook. Know anyone? The book website and my own website need some work. Any volunteers? Switching between writing and marketing helps me maintain a healthy balance and not get burned out. Thank you for helping me get to this point- it's exciting. Please help me continue promoting the Coffee Smuggler Kickstarter campaign and see how far over the goal we can go in the next seven days. I'm off to turn my pen scratches into Word bytes.