Editing, The Next Phase

Finally made it through the second reading of "Where Power Lies," and this morning, I ran the program to count how frequently each word is used and the closest proximity of uses. I went through the list and removed some things that won't matter, i.e., people's names, punctuation marks, scene break marks, etc. Next comes the tricky part: to analyze the rest of the 84 pages of the list.

I know I tend to overuse the words "that" and "had," among a few others. I do a Find operation in Word to look at each instance and decide if the word is needed or if the sentence can be replaced. Other words used less frequently still present a challenge. An example, the list showed the word "granite" had been used twice in the manuscript, 67 words apart. I checked the document and found I had used it to describe the steps in front of a building and then again when mentioning the wall surrounding the same building. The second appearance can be eliminated because we've already established that the outdoor plaza is made of granite. On the other hand, the word "inventing" appears twice with only seven words in between, yet when checking the text, the repetition makes sense and I'll leave it alone. It's a time consuming task, so much so that in the past, I've gotten bored with it and quit after tackling the obvious. As stated in an earlier post, I've seen evidence in my published books that I really need to stick with it.

I started working on a cover idea, manipulating images for it, but that is also a time-consuming process. This morning, I took a break and did a little writing on the next Windsong Lake book, although the break didn't last long in the face of the guilty feeling I should be finishing "Where Power Lies."