Seven Edits

I've heard that you should read through your book seven times before submitting it for publication.  That sounded excessive, but I realize that I'm approaching that number with Tapestry!  In fact, before writing each day, I generally reviewed the previous day's work, so that could be considered a 'first' read-thru.  Then, in the evenings, I would read the new pages aloud to Michael, hence a second and third read-thru/edit of sorts.  Before submitting the story to my friend for proofing, I gave it another big read, with a lot of changes (#4).  Then, she reviewed it (#5).  Now, I'm going thru again (#6), still finding small problems.  After my personal edits, I'm again reading aloud to Michael in the evenings (#7 and #8!).  Even scrapping Laura's and Michael's read-thrus and only counting mine (which I think that 7 read-thru recommendation was talking about), I'm up at about five times now!  I suppose it's true!

I just finished my last personal read-thru this morning.  I'll continue with Michael in the evenings, and we're about half done right now.

I plan to go back to Silk for a while after this and, when I've edited that once again, come back to Tapestry for a final read-thru.  FINAL, right?  It's hard to fathom that I've been at it for nearly a year now, when it only took me a month to write the first draft of Silk.

I received a fortune cookie a while back that said, "Your dream will come true in six months."  I thought, six months?  But my books will be out before then!  I'm starting to think that fortune knew its stuff, though!