I downloaded the manuscript and discovered 150 notes on 70 pages. Good grief. How many of these notes involved the possible new chapter? There must be a lot since there were only a handful of additional fixes.
I went through the notes and discovered 20 were compliments or observations with no work involved. Another 20 involved the new content. That meant that 100+ comments involved the "handful" of other things.
How did I get this done in just over a week? First, I list out the various comments by chapter. I’m dyslexic and all of those comments as well as “track changes” make the manuscript almost unreadable. So I list which comments need to be dealt with in each chapter. Chatty comments and repeats don't make it to the list.
In terms of the actual writing, I start with the easy fixes. These are the ones asking for clarification or if I really meant X instead of Y. As I take care of a comment, I cross it off the list. Next I tackle the ones that require me to go back to a source. I expand on points and give additional examples.
Big problems that might require a new chapter? Those I tackle last. I tried to fix this one with a bit more information in Chapter 5 but that didn’t work. So I pulled a bit out of this chapter, a bit out of that chapter and did the research to write a bit more.
With a new chapter composed of text that had to be moved from one point to another in the manuscript, I then read through all 70 pages. I needed to make sure that I struck the information now in the new chapter from where it has first been located in the manuscript. I had to make sure that transitions still made sense and references to earlier information were still referring to earlier information.
Last but not least, I read through all of the comments one more time. With 150 it is easy to miss something. This is also when I respond to comments that deal with things I didn’t change. Often these are cases where someone’s motivations cannot be determined and I won’t speculate or I made a fix different from what was requested.
Some people may think that they key to working through 150 comments is to tie yourself to the desk. That doesn’t work for me. I need to get up and move. Sometimes I go to yoga. Other times I game with my family. Still other times I take the pruners and cut out honeysuckle. Yes, I do yard work, but all of the invasive honeysuckle (think kudzu with flowers) has been annihilated.
And I also managed to meet my deadline.
--SueBE
To find out more about Sue Bradford Edwards' writing, visit her blog, One Writer's Journey. Sue is also the instructor for Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults. The next session begins July 22nd, 2019.
