Editing the Nine Lies Series

It’s been a while since I’ve given you an update, so I wanted to keep you apprised of what I’m working on.

Book 5

Like I mentioned last time, I made a print proof of Nine Lies Book 5: Shadows. That was mostly1 a success, and I read through it and made further edits.

After that, I made an ePub of NL5 and read through that on my phone’s Kindle app. I found a few more typos, but most of the notes I made on that version were very minor things like word choice changes.

I have those notes saved and will transfer them to both my Scrivener file (which I use to compile the ePub format of my books) and my InDesign book (for the print format) sometime soon.

After those changes are made, the book will go to my meticulous editor so he can catch anything I missed and raise objections to any aspects of the plot, characters, etc. that have issues.

Unfortunately, due to my long hiatus, it has been years since I sent him NL4, so he is rereading Weakness now and will read Ashes, Penance, and Vengeance again before he looks at Shadows.

In the meantime, I have moved on to the next books.

Book 6

I read through my Scrivener file of Nine Lies Book 6, Lies, and made some edits. Then I started making the print proof, because I’m surprisingly happy with NL6 until some things towards the end2, so most of it is already at the stage where I would be content to have it in a print proof.

NL6 has a lot of chapters, though, so it’s slow going, and in the meantime I’ve moved on to NL7.

Book 7

There are a lot more problems to fix in Nine Lies Book 7. Just like I tend to reread my previous writing before adding new content when I sit down to write a scene, I also tend to reread the existing books in the Nine Lies Series periodically to help keep track of all the details I need to remember for continuity throughout the series. So it makes sense to me that the later books will need more editing, since I’ve spent less time rereading them.

I have been successful so far in rewriting things as necessary, though, so hopefully NL7 will be a much better book by the time I’m done with this pass.

And Beyond

Depending on how much work NL7 needs, I will either camp out there for a while and go over it again (and again?), or I will move on to NL8 and then - finally - NL9.

I think Felix’s story is very powerful and I hope that by the time the books are out you’ll find them worth the wait.

  1. I say mostly because I never like the cover on the first print proof and always have to tweak it, and I usually need to redo the blurb, acknowledgments, and various parts of the front and back matter - so this proof was as good as could be expected, while still being as imperfect as usual. ↩

  2. I usually edit little by little as I reread what I wrote last time before settling into a new writing session, so I almost always have to rewrite my books’ endings, because they are the only portions of the books that haven’t already been edited multiple times before the first draft of the book is finished. ↩