Doleful Creatures: "I'm Feeling Much Better Now."

At the end of my last round of editing on Doleful Creatures, I was pretty bummed.

The story was there – it was just hidden underneath a lot of fluff. Which I cut. My word count dropped from 75,000 to just over 63,000, and I wasn’t sure I had enough of a tale to tell to make the story work.

Forty chapters in, however, I’m feeling much better now.

Clearing out the fluff has made a lot more room for the story which, thanks to my outlining, is coming along a lot better than I thought it would. Also, I’m only halfway through editing, and I’ve got my word count upwards of 70,000 again – and I believe I’ve done that by adding to the story, not by bringing in more fluff.

The goal of publishing before the year is out (I know; where have you heard that before) seems more attainable now than in January. I’ve got to find some beta readers, however – once again, I’m too close to the book to see its flaws.

Then there’s the cover to consider. I don’t want to end up at lousybookcovers.com. No sir.