The Final(?) Draft.....

.....is completed and printing as I blog.

Can this really be the last edit? Well until an agent, editor or publisher requests more, then I intend for this to be the final draft. I'm going to try and print off two copies (oh! a laser printer would be wonderful right now!) so that Pam and I will each have our own working copy for our get together next Saturday.

The word count never went much beyond 77,000 words all the way through this last draft. I would take a re-count at the end of each completed chapter and was amazed to see so little variation, even with small additions and revisions along the way. I may still need to do some general fomatting, but that will be just before we decide to send to a printer for the bound copies which Pam mentioned in her comments earlier today.

Now that this draft is done, I must turn my attention to that much-dreaded rite of the spring season - filing income tax papers....grrrr...ugh....drat... I'm sure you get the picture!

The day started quite drearily, cold, grey and rainy. However the sun has returned and even though it is cool, it certainly feels like spring. I saw a red-winged blackbird today, another harbinger that winter's grip is fast fading.

Monday looms once again, with work's deadlines and volumes.

I'm quite pleased with the new business cards and for the next order will remember to include this blog address! After all its an important part of who Jamie Tremain is.

Have a good week.

Cheers!

One Month Gone...

.....eleven more to go in 2009. Hard to believe the end of January is already here (yes I know its tomorrow, but what’s in a technicality?)

Have I mentioned before how much the winters wear me down? This week has been a real drain…earlier this week, the morning commute was affected by yet another strong snow storm, but even though the traffic crawled, it was good to see an absence of ditched vehicles, and a safe arrival at my destination was accomplished. Today however, was another story…traffic was flowing quite nicely, no precipitation and the thoughts of arriving at the office a little earlier had the day off to a good start. Not for long! A mere 5 kms ahead, lay a jack-knifed tractor trailer, across all three lanes of the highway! Almost at the same time as I heard the news on the radio traffic report, blinking red tail lights dominated the road ahead. No time to take the next exit, and so for the next 90 minutes I was able to travel the astounding distance of 2 kilometres and then join the throng of traffic managing to squeeze by on the shoulder. Not an easy task for the multitude of transport trucks either as the space was quite limited. Hopefully the driver of the disabled 18-wheeler was unhurt.

However, that was almost 12 hours ago and now its that most favourite time of the work week – Friday evening! A time to wind down, maybe think about the chores which need dealing with over the next couple of days…or not!

Pam has been industriously drafting mock up letters to agents and publishers…and I have been making my way through the 4th draft of our Madelaine. She and I plan a writing weekend next week here and it would be wonderful if we can actually finish up the draft and get it ready to send out!

No word yet on the “query holidy” submission we sent in earlier this month, although the publisher has extended the date they promise to contact a writer if interested.

We shall see!

Enjoy your weekend, stay warm, stay dry and never take the day for granted.

Cheers!

Liz

Neglectful, Aren't I?

I haven't disappeared, just busy with work and the revising of Madelaine. It's slow going (the revising - not work!) and I don't want to be too hasty with it. I think I've done 6 chapters and am hoping to knock off at least one more this evening, if not two.

Even though I have Body Perfect to add to, my focus is more driven to polishing up this second draft, at which point we will tackle a third, and hopefully final draft. But you know what that means don't you? We then have to really get serious and start pitching our baby to an agent or directly to a publishing house(s)...still not sure which route to go, although I think we are leaning more towards finding an agent first. The assumption being that he/she would have the knowledge of which publishers would be interested and not bother with those that wouldn't.

Of necessity this post is brief as I see Blogger has posted an alert that the site will have a maintenance outage in about 45 minutes, so don't want to get caught mid-post!

Have a good evening and cheers for now!

Liz