Progress Report: Round Three Finished!

I should have posted yesterday, but I was finishing the third round of editing on my current manuscript, the unnamed mannerpunk fantasy. (Hey, there's an idea for the title: Unnamed Mannerpunk Fantasy. Hmm...) Said editing round involved printing out and reading aloud every single one of the 140,000 words. Much to the relief of my vocal cords, I'm done! All that's left is basic data-entry: logging the changes in my Word document.

Obligatory celebratory image follows:

Were you expecting a lolcat? Ha! I bet you were! 

I like to mix things up a bit, and toss in literary humor now 

and then to keep you on your toes. (courtesy this website)

In college, one of my English professors insisted we read our academic papers aloud to a fellow classmate before we were allowed to hand them in (shout out to Jenn!), so I went into this process knowing how helpful it would be. Even so, the number of marks on each page startled me. I mean, I've read this manuscript at least six times, all-told, on my computer screen. I still caught typos and clumsy wording left and right. Just goes to show -- effective editing should involve a number of different methods. (Check out all the details of my previous editing pass.)

During this editing round, I also admitted a hard truth to myself: my beloved subplot needs to go. It's a complicated subplot, one that sets up a great deal of what would come in Unnamed Mannerpunk Fantasy: Part Deux, if a publisher ever paid me to write it. It involves several secondary characters whom I have grown to love, but for now they're on the chopping block. I'll simply have to introduce and develop them in Part Deux, should the occasion arise.

The upshot of all this pruning is that I'll easily clock in at my goal of 120,000 words. Time for another obligatory celebratory image of the Bard! 

This is a g-rated version of the original, found here. 

Honestly, I find the original funnier, but I run a 

family-friendly blog (for the most part).

Now I'm off to enter my edits from Round Two, so I can get started on Round Four! Cue work music!