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May 2025 in writing
Manuscript progress I had named my end-of-April milestone 4.0b1; I needed to do a read-through to catch any issues before completing the fourth draft. I finished that read-through in May, but the changes were extensive: a number of chapter and scene reorders, with a number of major scene rewrites. I retroactively renamed 4.0b1 to 4.0, and labeled my latest changes the fifth draft.
I submitted the fifth draft to my beta reader and developmental editor [!
April 2025 in writing
Fourth Draft progress I finished the fourth draft’s initial manuscript pass, where I updated the scenes with my notes and rewrites from my third draft read…I think having a hard deadline made me way more productive than anything else.
I don’t yet consider the fourth draft finished, but I’ll finish by the end of May :)
Developmental Edit I made a serious push to find a developmental editor in April, especially since they tend to be booked out a number of months.
March 2025 in writing
Fourth Draft progress I’m over the worst of my jet lag from my trip to Japan. I still woke up at 2am this morning, but I’ve been up and productive, so I’ll take it.
I’ve finished reading the book. And I started the fourth draft. I’m going to try to finish this draft pass by the end of April, though that may be optimistic. More details below.
Reading my book I focused too much on line- and paragraph-level issues, editing as I go, when all of the advice said to read the book at a high level.
February 2025 in writing
Third Draft and Beyond It was a good February.
I finished my initial 3rd draft manuscript edit pass on the 23rd, likely the first time I completed a milestone before my soft deadline. I had thought the 3rd Point of View would take the longest, because I had massively altered its outline and arc, but it turns out I had already addressed most of those changes in draft 2.5.
January 2025 in writing
Third Draft The 2nd POV continues.
At the beginning of the month, I was going slowly; I had hit the section of Act Two that I had heavily refactored, so I was largely writing scenes from scratch. I finally caught up to the parts that had largely stayed the same, and I sped up significantly. And then, as of the past week or so, I’ve slowed back down:
I’m hitting Act 3 and the climactic scenes, which always slow me down.