Hello, everyone. A bit of news. The first draft of Moon Girl 3 is done. Yay!
Where is Moon Girl 2 you say? Why am I not working on that?
Well, Moon Girl 2 won't be far off. I like to put it through a lot of rigorous beta reading before it goes anywhere which is where it is currently. I'll admit I've kinda used Moon 3 as an excuse to procrastinate getting the cover for 2 done but now I no longer have that excuse....
I want to take a bit of time to tell you about my process before publication. Just so you know why I'm a book ahead.
So, I was writing Moon Girl 2 while looking into and getting through publication with Moon Girl 1. By the time Moon Girl 1 was out Moon Girl 2 was through its first draft and it felt nice on my nerves to know that I had something ready for the next book even if I needed to go through beta reading and stuff first. I wanted to see if I could keep it up. It just makes life a bit easier.
Here's a bit more detail about how I go through things:
1) First draft: So my first draft is always a mess. It has comments in brackets, sometimes entire sections missing, red squiggly lines everywhere. Spelling and grammar mistakes left, right and centre and sometimes some characters don't even have names yet, I've literally just but (name) where their name should be. I see this draft as a framework. Purely story, without all the bells and whistles of actual good writing. Focusing too much on trying to get the writing sounding good interrupts my flow most of the time and I find it's easier to embellish later when there is something to work from.
2) Second Draft: I read through it again and iron out anything that needs it for the second draft. I add all the missing information. I do my best to fix grammar and spelling and look a lot more critically at the actual writing. I also add chapters at this point.
3) Grammarly check: Chapter by Chapter I'll put the book through an online program called Grammarly which is basically a smarter spell check. I won't listen to all the improvements it suggests if I like what I wrote better but it's good at catching things I missed.
4) Friends Round 1: I have two friends that look over it at this point, giving me feedback, pointing out any plot holes and any spelling or grammar again.
5) Third Draft: I go through it again with the feedback in mind then throw it through Grammarly again to make sure it's all okay.
6) Friends Round 2: After this, it goes to my other half who did an amazing job going through Moon 1 so he is now the gatekeeper of my book. He'll go through and give me feedback same as my other friends.
7) Fourth draft: I'll change the book based on his feedback, one last trip through Grammarly and boom. publishing time.
So as you can see I go through quite a lot to make sure the book is the best it can be and that's just the writing side of it, so as much as I have finished the first draft os Moon 3 today. It will still be a while before you see it, unfortunately.
Moon Girl 2 hopefully won't be too much longer. At the moment it's sitting in friends round 2. I hope this helps you understand my process and why I might be a bit ahead in my posts sometimes.
Suppose I should stop procrastinating the cover now.....