FEBRUARY 2022
BLT Coda
I finished Blood & Soul at 10:23am on February 21, 2022. Before two intense editing sessions, the book was 201 pages long with a 90,249 word count. After the edits, it came in at 223 pages and 99,674 words.
The manuscript is now in the hands of my publisher, which will likely entail another edit. A contract has been signed, but I'm unsure of a release date for the book as yet. Hopefully, it comes out before summer begins.
The piecemeal way in which I wrote Blood & Soul filled me with doubt for a time, but now I'm of the opinion it's the best book in the Bloodline Trilogy. I rarely see a book as "best," but I feel it with Blood & Soul.
And still, after all these years, the thrill of seeing my work in print has not diminished. It never gets old, and I never take it for granted.
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Posted by Deidre Dalton on Friday, 25th February 2022
Joys of Editing
I'm the Queen of Typos. The yellow sticky notes indicate deletions, re-writes or inserting new scenes for Blood & Soul. The pink sticky notes are used to mark pages with simple yet absurd typos.
There are multiples on nearly every page!
One of the worst misses was in regards to the parents of the main character, Emma Beckett. I declared them "lifelong vegetarians" in the preceding novel (Bloodlust), yet I had them eating hamburgers and hot dogs in Blood & Soul. I cursed and talked to myself in disgust when I realized the error, but it's all fixed now.
The first edit is complete, but I'll be re-reading the book two or three more times before submitting it to my publisher.
Wish me luck . . .
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Send Comment *Posted by Deidre Dalton on Monday, 14th February 2022
Crunch Time
It's crunch time for Blood & Soul. My scattered inserts and notes finally came together, and now the book is fully assembled and ready for edit mode. It will surely increase my Word Counts by tenfold.
Jerry found a box of old dot matrix computer paper during a recent cleaning spree. It was perfect for printing the edit copy of Blood & Soul. The document came to 90,249 words. However, it may grow less or more as I edit the first draft. Thankfully, I have a hefty supply of pens, highlighters and sticky notes to help me on my way. I literally run the ink dry in a ballpoint pen about every ten days.
I also created a new logo for the Bloodline Trilogy, which is meant to portray the "Triple Goddess" as coming full circle. In other words, the cycle has been broken by the birth of a male child. You'll have to read Blood & Soul to understand the connotation.
As I've mentioned before, writing a book comes in various stages for me. It begins as wonderful and free-flowing, then becomes complicated when trying to keep it all consistent, then enters the "crap" stage as I believe it can't be done, which eventually turns into satisfaction as I pull it all together.
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Send Comment *Posted by Deidre Dalton on Sunday, 6th February 2022
