Finishing touches to The Dead Spend No Gold and done.

So I've written 3 full drafts of The Dead Spend No Gold.  I've had editors go over 2 of them.  I've read the entire manuscript to Linda (bless her), and I've read the whole book to writer's group.

So yesterday I sit down to do a final read, and...

I start changing things.  A lot of things, especially in the first two chapters.

Even as I'm doing it, I'm amazed and slightly concerned that I'm messing with it.  I call this doing my "sloppy" version, but that sounds bad, and isn't really what is happening.  I mean, that's the way I remember thinking about it when I did it to Star Axe.  That's the term I used.

So I'll try to explain what I mean by "sloppy."

First of all, this has happened to every book I've had published.  (And revealingly, not to the books I haven't published, because they have never gotten to the point where I can do it.)

I do one final light go through, changing things.  Basically, what happens is that I "loosen" up a little.  Everything to that point has been to get the writing as "tight" as possible.  Now I let my instinct take over, adding here, cutting there.  Like I can visualize the final version, now that all the content is in front of me, fully edited.  So a little flourish there, a little daring cutting there.

This version is the one people are going to read.  So I lighten up a little, put in little touches, just try to individualize it more.   Small personalizations and quirks, dare I say, put in some "art"into it.

Just making it all my own.

For some reason I don't quite understand, it always reads better when I'm done.  But I can't do it until it's done, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I took the first two chapters to writer's group last night -- for the third time, bless their little hearts -- and they seemed to like it.

What was especially cool is the parts they liked best were the parts I had put in a few hours before.

It's a mystery.

Sent it off to Lara yesterday for a last clean copy-edit, then on to my publisher around the 20th.

I finally have some free time to read Linda's book, Once on a Blue Moon, on her iPad.