Vol.3 Word Count:  37239 (Been editing a lot, looks like by the word count I trimmed 2k words this week!)  Thanks to All Who Bought Echo!  And BIG THANKS to Melissa, Barbara, Ian, Lorna, [anonymous], Lisa, Meg, Matt, Bobby, F.T., Alice Smith, Leslie Coop, Richard, and now Shauna for posting AMAZING reviews on Amazon!!!  Ashley too for the 5 star on Nook!  (The awesome Vikki G has told me I don’t need to thank her so this will be the last.  Thanks Vikki!)

News:  Editing editing editing!  Now that I’ve been writing a bit, I’ve defined 3 editing “phases.”  The first is immediate flow stuff, getting rid of redundancies and repetitions and skippy wording.  The second is structural—is this description/dialogue an improvement of the GENERAL rhythm of the story?  The third is conceptual:  Did I communicate the underlying philosophy as BEST as I possibly could have?  In military parlance you could say tactical-strategic-goal oriented.  It’s not a linear process either; I go back and forth between the 3 phases, because every time something gets changed, I have to start back at square one—it has to first work “tactically,” (yep, that’s right I was enlisted; I’m much more concerned with moment-to-moment success than the Secret Evil Plan.  BUT, I have grown and learned and now recognize that having a solidly organized Secret Evil Plan is essential to the CAMPAIGN’S success; I can’t just pat myself on the back for successful mission after mission) then the rest follow on, and then I bounce endlessly back and forth, which is why I edit so much.  And sometimes you just gotta make a judgment call, as long as thing flow right, you throw something in that’s too damn cool to leave out.

Once I read it enough times and all I can find are minor “tactical” changes, then I know it’s ready for others to read it, because you can always find minor word choice changes depending on the day or your given mood.  I’ve struggled to express my editing process in the past, but of course I overthink everything, and there it is as best as I can say it.

Let’s see where I am story-wise:  Atriya’s going through it pretty hard (I know—again) and I’m afraid he’s gonna keep getting hammered throughout this book.  Verus has been enjoying a nice stretch of…can’t say downtime, cause as you can see by the cover, a lot of this book involves her trekking across the Parch (oops was that a spoiler?  I meant desert), but now she’s getting ready to freakin’ DESTROY.  That’s right—I’m about to write my first fight scene with MAGIC ZAP-BOLTS son!  That’s how they were referred to by The Thing in a long-ago crossover between the Fantastic Four and X-Men (He was actually talking about Cyclops’s optic blasts, for those who are as nerdy as me).  Anyways, time to go Crush at the gym!  If you are a writer, I wish you inspired drafting and insightful editing!!!