Earlier this summer, Peggy, a new writing mentor of mine who teaches English courses at a Nevada University, helped me with suggestions to improve my first chapter of Earning Freedom. Her insightful comments, together with lessons I learned on style from two writing books she sent, gave me more confidence as I sat down this morning to edit the first draft of chapter two.
I received the typewritten pages in last night’s mail, so I woke with enthusiasm to sit down to work this morning. When editing, I bring out my large dictionary, the Oxford American edition that Carole sent me specifically for this project. I began at 3:07 and worked through every sentence. I completed chapter two before I had the benefit of Peggy’s lesson, and I also received help from Carol Zachary, my other friend and mentor, since writing the draft. Having learned from their guidance, I was able to improve the flow of this draft by using more contractions and offering more descriptions that show the reader rather than tell the reader about prison.
By 8:00 in the afternoon, I finished the edit, having gone through every word, sentence, and paragraph of the 40-page chapter three times. Tomorrow I will read through the chapter one more time, then put it in an envelope and send to Carole for updates. After she makes the corrections, she will send copies to Carol and Peggy for their final review and suggestions.
Sometime next week I expect to receive the typewritten pages of chapter three. I look forward to editing that project as well. Once chapter two and three are as strong as I can make them, I’ll send them to my agent and he will have a complete package to submit for publishing consideration.
I ran 10 miles this morning, boosting my distance tally to 1,863 miles over the past 211 consecutive days.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
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