Jenkins, Bring Me a Progress Report

One of my favorite past times is bouncing ideas for my books off my husband over a glass or 3 of whiskey. By now, he's almost as familiar with my characters as I am, so he can tell me if any idea I have sounds out of character for anyone and stuff like that.

And The Husband makes Three

Lately he's been going over my editor's comments chapter by chapter and we've been working through the issues together. This has resulted in a lot of progress on my rewrite. Like, a lot. Like, I'm probably almost done.

Now, the thing about my editor is that he is NOT the audience for which I am writing. I already know my target audience digs it (at least the ones who have read it do). With that in mind, he not only pointed out all the story structure problems (things like plot holes, under development, over development, head-hopping) but he also pointed out all the stuff he personally didn't like. I don't want to say he trolled my book, but he gave me the kind of feed back that Comic Book Guy might give. The "Um, excuse me but..." type of stuff.

This is NOT a knock against my editor. This is kind of what I need. I need someone to point all that junk out so I can address it before I publish. I've changed dialogue, the timeline of events, and expanded on things I hadn't given much thought to. This has resulted in a much smoother, more coherent story. And I am pleased.

 Now, will I change every qualm he has with the story? No. He is a fundamentally different reader than me. There are quite a few things I'm keeping that he dislikes, because my target audience likes them and I like them.

I'm so close to being done with the rewrite. A few good, long writing sessions and I should be done. I can't wait. I am really proud of this thing I've created and I can't wait to share it with everyone.

In the meantime, check out what the husband got us!

Cool, huh.