Hello Everyone,

Happy Earth Day first of all.

I hope everyone is trying for one day to be a little extra Earth friendly. I managed to do an okay job but will try a little harder next year.

Today I am going to address a question about my works that has been coming up a lot lately. It is about editing and the subject of word count.

My first draft that I began working with Wheatmark was around 180,000 words. This was because in my sleepless nights I would compile short stories together, journal entries from memories of my past and other random writings into one manuscript. When I decided at one point to take it to see if a publisher would want to work with me it was very long and full of repetitive details. Anyways after my first edit I got it down to just under 100,000 words. Then we focused on an age group to market the book to and removed some more unnecessary wordage to get closer to the general word count that is appealing for the 12+ age group. From then on out and during the process the editors and I were making grammar and other edits while decreasing the word count to end with somewhere around 77,000 words. I would have to check again to give you the exact amount.

Long story short

Before I go on repeating myself is that many books go through strenuous edits and will still have flaws. I have picked out a couple in mine so far but I have also proofread and approved the final copy before going to print. In the future now, as I compile the next books out of the scattered written stories I will be remembering this editing approach to hopefully create an easier edit the next time around but also to make it easier to concentrate on more detailed areas of the text while avoiding the common errors or excessive wordage.

Live and Learn, right?

Thanks for reading,

Joshua Crane Dowidat