Slow progress on my novel

Slow progress on editing

Over the last few days I have commenced the tough task of editing my novel for children. I’ve had several friends read the rough first draft manuscript and give me feedback on it. I’ve been steadily working through these and making some changes to the work.

Rewriting

Some of the changes are purely of the typographical type; spelling errors, missing words or letters, errors of grammar and so on. These are generally easy to fix. Several readers are also on the lookout for sentences or passages which do not make sense, or which are inconsistent with other parts of my story. These often need rewriting and that can be not only time consuming but also frustrating when trying to get it all right.

Distractions

The progress on my novel has also been hampered this week by other events and illness. Over recent weeks I’ve had a very bad back. I’m not sure about the cause, but it is being very painful if I stand or walk for more than a few minutes. Fortunately, writers can do a lot of sitting. I can’t help thinking that my lack of exercise and general fitness has been a major contributing factor to the back problem now facing me. As a consequence I’ve recently been to my doctor twice, my physiotherapist twice and the local hospital for x-rays-all in the last week. All those appointments cut into the writing day.

Then today I had to fulfill a speaking engagement arranged some time ago. I spoke to a group of elderly people over lunch about another of my passions-Australian birds. I also showed photos of birds to illustrate my talk. While this was enjoyable, and I received plenty of great feedback from the listeners, it severely cut into my writing hours.