Week 5: Finishing My Rough Draft, Sourcing Editors and The Next Step

Last week I gave you an insight into the outline of my book. If you missed it, you can read last week's recap here. I'm now 5 weeks into the book writing process and here's what I've done so far:

Week 1: Got myself into the right mindset, mind mapping and outlining my book

Week 2: Started my rough draft and wrote 6,267 words for the week. 

Week 3: Had a horror week and only wrote 3,920 wordS

Week 4: Faired better, my book started to take shape and managed 10,120 words

This week came in at 7,875 which takes my current word count to 28,182. I fell a bit short in getting my draft done, but I'm still on target to finish next week with a word count between 35,000-40,000.

Over the past week, I also sought a new editor for this project. Because I'm not going with my regular editor, I've used Reedsy to vet other editors who fit this project. The great thing about Reedsy, is you're hiring someone with decent experience. The company is a marketplace to help get your books into the world, and they only hire trusted freelancers. Although you may pay a little more than normal, you know you're going to get the quality of service. 

What's Next?

Once I've finished the rough draft, I'll do a chapter by chapter verbal read through and a self-edit. In this book, I teach you how to go through a proper self edit so it's primed for editing.

It's such an important part of the process because doing the legwork now means less overwhelm and updates when your manuscript Is returned from your editor.

I'll also be finalising a new cover designer and editor for this project as I've found a couple of great options.

Week 5 By The Numbers 

⏰Working on my draft: 6 and a half hours

✍️Week 4 Word Count: 7,875

📖Total Running Word Count: 28,182