Thirsty Thursday #11

Thirsty Thursday is my own recurring meme whereupon I lift a glass (metaphorically speaking) to celebrate the triumphs I have experienced in the last seven days. They can be big, they can be small, but there has to be something because I believe life is all about looking at the positive. It's simply too short and too unpredictable to focus on the negative. So with that in mind, here is why I'm raising a glass today:

1. This isn't necessarily news to those who subscribe to my Facebook feed, but I finished off the rough draft of Bitter Nights last week and am into the Read-through edit phase of the process. Here's how it should work from here, but don't hold me to this because the process is organic:
- Read-through edit is merely trying to see early on what parts of the story need shoring up. However, since I'm close to the material, I obviously need help which means...
- ... it'll go to a few Beta Readers once I have the edits in. I'm going to try and be respectful of the schedules of my readers but theoretically they would get right to it, make their comments and I would be back into the comprehensive edit/revision by the middle of August.
- Comprehensive edit/Revision is just that. I start from the back of the book and work my way forward and try to objectively look at each paragraph and see how to make it better mechanically. Along the way I look at ways to take the reader suggestions and incorporate them to hopefully make the overall story better.
- Once that's done, it's off to a couple of select readers who have final opinion on the product. Assuming it doesn't require any more major revisions, I will run the manuscript through Serenity editor to point out where I need to fix things mechanically.
- Somewhere in that process I'll finalize the title and get a cover commissioned.
- Once all these things are done, then it'll be ready for release. However, in order to make sure there's some "buzz" to go along with the release, I will get advanced review copies out to about five blogs that will be set to post a review on "release day".
- No timeline for any of this. Again, it's an organic process.

2. My daughter turned four today. FOUR!! Where the heck did the time go?

3. Quick shout out to my old childhood friend Devon for the birth of her baby boy, and to an old friend of my wife, Diane, for the birth of her baby girl. It's a baby-fest! That's the third person in about a month who has had a kid, and the fifth in the past year. Love babies. Don't necessarily want another one myself, but I'm happy for others.

I think that's it for this version of Thirsty Thursday. I know it's not much but lately I've been pretty busy and haven't been keeping track of a lot of the little things that I used to. Ya'll stay happy!