The urge to write has been flowing through me over the past few months, which is why I have “finished” two upcoming books. I love the feel of accomplishment when I type the word FIN at the end of my drafts. It means that my nights of insomnia are coming to an end and I can finally take a mental health break, at least for a while.

The first of my completions was a story that I had tentatively titled, “Olive Juice”. Yeah, not a great title and the title is definitely still being debated. Right now, it’s “Destiny”. I know, work in progress. The story was originally started in 2012 when I took a road trip to San Francisco. The idea came to life as I watched the open road. Obviously, it is a road trip story.

The first draft was completed last month when I picked it up again after four years. It had approximately 30K words written at the time I stopped. I stopped working on the first draft when I lost interest in writing. I write for fun, not because I think of it as a job.

Thinking about writing again, I looked at the different stories I had started that were at different stages. I reread “Olive Juice” and I fell in love with the characters again and knew that I could bring them to life because they were true character’s with personalities. My unfinished first draft got a clean up as I reread, then I was ready to finish the story and I did. Once that was complete, I printed it out and put the story on the shelf so I can go back to it later for a another read and edit.

With the writing bug still itching me, I decided to take on of my stories that had a completed first draft to it. Girl Interuptous is a completed fanfic that needed a rewrite. This story was completed in 2012 also. With this story, I changed the names of the characters and after reading it four years later, I knew that I needed to change the ending. When the story was being written for FanFiction.net, I allowed the readers to guide my ending based on the reviews, but it wasn’t how I wanted it to end.

Now with the story back in my hands, I was free to end it any way I wanted. I cut a lot of scenes out, and added new ones based on how the story’s new flow went. I think the drama became much more intense when I developed a sub-character and made her a primary character.

With that, I finished the second draft and renamed it “Cause and Effect”… though someone liked the idea of the title being “Truth and Consequence”. Remember, anything can happen between now and then.

So what happens next?

I will go back to “Destiny” and give it another read to look for plot holes and things that don’t work for the story or slow it down. Once I finish that second draft, I will begin to “edit” myself using various programs. Once I finished the first edit, I will put the book aside again and begin a second/third draft to “Cause and Effect”.

Once I finish my edits to Cause and Effect, I will go back to Destiny and read it again to make sure I am happy with the story as a whole. If I am, that is when I try to find an editor to pay.

This editor process is something I have not done before. I have used people I knew who had experience in editing and they had worked on some of my previous books. They are not professionals and can’t expect them to be perfect. I don’t think I will ever come close to perfection because I don’t think anyone can be. Even the big names with a 25 member team like Stephen King have errors in their books.

My goal this time around is to save the money and pay for an editor. Finding the correct editor that works with me, not for me, is key. It looks like each one of the upcoming books will run about $1000 receive a line edit. I may have to break the editing down and have a few chapters done at a time or try to save up the grand before I begin the editing process.

Why go the editor route, when I haven’t in the past?

Well, while I have books available to purchase and I am proud of the story, I am not proud of the quality of work. They are there but I don’t foresee myself running out to book conventions and promoting myself heavily because of the amount of errors in them. I see the errors when I read the completed books and just feel they are not as good as others who are out there promoting themselves.

Maybe I think it is time to start turning out quality work before allowing people to read. I need to not be in such a hurry to publish a finished first draft and wait for the third and fourth drafts.