Crossing the finish line...

I've finished going through KNAVE'S HONOR and making the revisions that my Esteemed Editor wanted, and others I thought were necessary. So, I'm done now, right?

Nope.

Now I start all over again, at Chapter One, Page One. Reading the whole thing from beginning to end. Because (in no particular order):

1. I want to make sure all the changes are "seamless," that it seems as if everything that happens in the story was always intended to happen just that way, in that particular order.

2. I've added 50 pages to the manuscript. That's a tad much. I'll be looking for places to trim.

3. As always, I'll be seeing if I've used the best words for what I'm trying to say.

4. Also as always, I'll be looking for typos, although these will be difficult for me to spot. I know the manuscript too well; I know what it's supposed to say, so that's what I tend to see.

Which is why I can get later proofs and discover things like my hero wandering through a dessert.

5. I'll be looking for continuity problems. Especially after making revisions, errors in things like the time line can creep in.

I'll be doing this on hard copy. I have to have paper in front of me at this stage, when I've got the whole book sitting in my head.

So that means I'll be inputting any new changes onto the computer later. That will be the seventh draft of my entire manuscript. Of course, there have been many more drafts of the individual scenes or chapters. This is just the way I work.

Then the revised manuscript will be ready to go back to NY.