Revisions

By Mike Jastrzebski

I'm not just talking about writing here, but also planning a cruise.

On the writing front I've been working hard at finishing up the revisions for Dog River Blues, the sequel to Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery). I'm on my fifth revision right now and my process goes something like this: first I go though and revise the revised original. (The book was written several years ago and revised several times back then.) Next my wife, Mary, edits the pages. I then go through and revise based on her suggestions, then I send it off to my critique group.

The group does a thorough vetting of the pages I've provided to them, and then I go through and do another revision based on their suggestions. After that Mary edits the pages again and I make final changes based on her suggestions.

This works well for me because my critique group consists of three college English professors and a couple of other very picky writers. Mary is not a professional editor, but she did a fair amount of proofreading in her previous life as an investigator for the Minnesota Department of Health. She's picky, almost obsessive, about finding errors in my work, and she doesn't mind telling me when she thinks I'm wrong.

After I finish this rewriting process I plan to go through the book one more time before converting it into an eBook, then Mary and I will both read the finished proof before we let the book go live on Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and all other eBook venues, plus as a paperback through CreateSpace. It's a tough process, but I want my books to be as clean and well-written as possible.

Revising our cruising plans was just as hard and just as necessary. You see, we've decided to spend another hurricane season in Fort Lauderdale. As much as we wanted to leave this spring, trying to get all of the boat work done plus work on the book proved to be too daunting of a task.

We have finished enough of the work on the boat so that we feel confident we can get out of here no later than November, but you never know, that plan may have to be revised too. I hope not.

As a consolation prize I plan to bring out Dog River Blues by the end of July and another book, tentatively titled Weep no More, by the end of the year.

Now I need to spend a little time revising this blog before I post it. You know what they say, "Life's a bitch, then you revise your expectations." At least that's what I say.

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