Shifting

I received the audio files from the narrator! I’ve spent hours every day this week listening and making notes on what she needs to edit. I still have 10 chapters to go, and the deadline is Sunday. After hearing someone else read my story, I picked up on a few writing tics. I didn’t detect them in all the edits I’ve done on the story, even when I read it aloud. The words don’t interfere with the story or pull the read out of it. They may not even be noticed by readers or other writers. But it’s something I’ll keep in mind as I work on my current projects.

I’m excited about having the audiobook available for sale. I’ll be more thrilled when the trilogy is done. But since I had to shift my time and energy from writing to editing, I now feel behind in my stories. Most days, I squeezed in about 500 words on The Bookie. I haven’t done anything on the short story or the first episode in the serial. I have ideas! And I’m holding out to compose directly on the computer. I feel like I would be moving backwards to return to my spiral and handwriting. But maybe that’s what I’ll need to do, especially if the words keep coming hard.

Once the audiobook is done, I’ll return to my fiction and do what I can to finish by the end of July. There are pieces I know I need to add. I also know I can’t add them until I’m done with the first draft. Maybe not writing in my spiral has shifted the way the stories come. I can see the movie screen when I type the story, but then I’m always looking to edit what shows up on the screen. I don’t do that when I write by hand. Perhaps this is an example of stepping back so I can move forward. At some point, I’ll figure out how all this movement of energy, focus, time, and ideas equates to stories and completed projects. I hope this happens before September 1.