Today was a good writing day. Yesterday was too, come to think of it. I finished up a side job on Monday, which opened up some time to exercise my muse beyond my routine two hours daily. And I was coming to the end of another draft of The Baldur Game.
This was the draft where I incorporated most (not all, but most) of the suggestions I got from my beta readers, one of whom is my co-blogger Phil. (Why are they called beta readers, anyway? Who are the alpha readers? No one ever explained that to me. And here I call myself an author.) I appreciate the comments and tweaks. They unquestionably improved the product and spared me numerous errors.
As one nears the finish line on a project, one often finds extra inner energy for the final sprint, which is what happened now. This is part of the final polish stage, and I feel things coming together. My next step, I think, is to construct my index of characters.
I like indexing. This was a surprise discovery for me. I recall looking at indexes in books I read as a kid, and thinking, “Somebody actually runs through these books and itemizes each item mentioned, and what page it’s found on. What an incredibly tedious task.”
But I took an indexing class in library school, and it turned out to be the most enjoyable class I had there. Indexing, it turned out, is perfect for my minor OCD nature. Approach it systematically, and when you’re finished you’ve got something neat and organized.
Character indexes are easier. I just go through the manuscript, note people’s names the first time they show up, and enter them in an alphabetized list, which is a breeze when you’re word processing. No need for page references. If you miss one the first time it appears, it’ll probably show up again. If not, he’s a pretty minor player, so who cares?
And once that task is done, there’s just the public domain map I plan to insert, to which I need to add some locations with Photoshop.
And then – I hope – one more quick read-through. And then I should be done, with only the cover to approve and the rigamarole of getting it published on Amazon left to do.
I do think this is a good book. In fact, I have an idea it’s a great book – but I also have an idea I’m biased on that score.
Ahhhh!
That’s excellent. So different from the incident Walter Scott records somewhere, in which he had written page upon page, and — “Look again upon them I dare not.”
Something like that. He assumed debts he wasn’t obligated to assume and worked away at the best way he knew to earn money.
But he wrote some fine books and is undeservedly neglected.
But now, today, have you an artist in mind for the cover?
Yes, I’ve commissioned the artist who’s done the last few covers.