Finished! Now to start all over again...

Whoo hoo! I have finished the revision of KNAVE'S HONOR. I cut 35 pages from the 50 I added, so it's a more acceptable length. And I just got the go-ahead for the next book (subject to final approval). Which means I can now start at the bottom of the mountain known as THE WARLORD'S BRIDE.

First, though, you may be wondering how I cut 35 pages. Was it difficult? Were altering margins involved?

No, I don't mess with the margins, or the font. They stay as they are.

What I look for is redunancies, and what often happens with a revision is that I move things earlier, or alter them enough that I can cut later in the manuscript, as happened with KNAVE'S HONOR.

There was a tricky plot bit in one chapter that I simply (and quite happily) excised. It has a point in the original version, but wasn't vital and was a pain, so good-bye!

I try to reduce every chapter by one page, which in this case meant 25 pages right there. I couldn't, but I managed to do that for many.

How do I do that? First to go are adverbs.

I tend to write short paragraphs. It's amazing how some of these can be combined.

I tend to write a lot of dialogue. Sometimes short answers/questions/statements can be put into one longer speech.

I combined two scenes featuring secondary characters.

And voila, 50 pages becomes 15.

So now I can start putting KNAVE'S HONOR out of my mind and start filling it with THE WARLORD'S BRIDE. I'm excited to be going back to Wales with this story; I do love my Welshmen! The heroine is in KNAVE'S HONOR, and I'm glad she's going to be getting a happy ending -- she deserves it!

So picture me waving a fond farewell to KNAVE'S HONOR and giving a big hello to THE WARLORD'S BRIDE -- although I'm also looking up at the mountain aware that it's going to take me awhile to climb it and there'll be times along the way when I'll be struggling.

That's the nature of the journey.