April this year is dedicated to my Camp NaNoWriMo project for 2020. I’m revising Princelings book 10 ready for the beta readers.  Have you read several Princelings of the East books? Would you like to give me feedback promptly on what works and what doesn’t in this book? Then please leave a note in the comments.

Problem solving

Revolution draft coverAs soon as I finished writing it I realised I had two problems with the book:

  • a bit of business throughout the series with a whistle had not found its reason for being there in the final book
  • I never really used a case of mistaken identity I had planned

As soon as I sat down to start editing it in November, I realised I had a major problem, even worse than those, to sort out.

I had written it as if it continued more or less where the previous book had finished. But I’d jumped a year!

Finding solutions

In some ways, getting stuck in the mire of house-moving helped. When I wanted to take my mind off everything else, I retreated to my Princelings world. Just as Fred asks Kira what he should do, and has conversations with her in the book, I talk to Fred and George when I’m stuck.

I also want to explore those conversations Fred has some more. Does she give good advice which he ignores, or does he change the conversations to fit what he thinks.

As for the year missing, I had some options.

  1. Rewrite the whole book starting as a follow on
  2. Keep to the timeline I’d developed. Sort out what doesn’t apply because of the time gap, and what needs to be covered somehow.
  3. Give George some flashbacks or contemplative moments to explain what happened at the end of book 9. I know some people wanted more closure.

Editing at Camp Nano

I have to face it, logging in my word count at Camp Nano every day makes me sit down and work. I may not have a fixed deadline for publication, but I do have a preference for getting the book out before next spring (which is when the bulk of the action takes place). It’s the final book of the series, and the deadline for the Princelings finishing their business is set.  It would be good if the author met it in real time!

So I started up the computer on the shelf and got started on 1st April, and immediately went in search of a copy of book 9 to read what I’d actually put in it about the crash. Several earlier versions of book 9 had different elements of the crash, its discovery, and what George did next. After thinking some more, I decided the ‘business’ I needed was in the beta version I’d sent out first.  Voila! A new chapter 2 with George thinking back on the whole problem. There are good reasons for George thinking back on the problem, which hadn’t been needed in the original draft of book 10, because at that stage it was in book 9!

So after doing that on my first evening at Camp Nano, I could put book 9 away and get on with book 10 as it is, twelve months on from where I thought I was.  There will be further tweaks to make the continuity work, but it also leaves me space for the whistle, which I have a plan for. Maybe not as many as George has, but still, I reckon I’ll be finished in April.

George followed his brother upstairs and settled into the armchair in front of the fire, wondering just how many of his back-up plans to reveal. PRINCELINGS REVOLUTION Princelings book 10 #amediting #campnanowrimo Click To Tweet

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It’s another April editing at Camp Nanowrimo project

4 thoughts on “It’s another April editing at Camp Nanowrimo project

  • 7 April, 2020 at 1:48 pm
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    Camp Nano is a perfect excuse or should I say driver/ to do the editing. I would volunteer to beta read but I still have the final PDF of my book to go over when it arrives and I’m beta reading for someone else. Let’s see when I wiggle out from under!

    • 9 April, 2020 at 12:14 pm
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      Good luck with you pdf. I have so many of your books to catch up on!

  • 7 April, 2020 at 3:22 pm
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    I should have thought of signing up for Camp Nano (not too late, I guess. There’s always that one kid who comes to camp late because her family was off doing something… :D). I’m not doing anything like so well with my editing.

    I’ll beta read for you, of course.

    • 9 April, 2020 at 12:06 pm
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      Well, Camp’s all changed this year, with a horrible and vast ‘find a writing group’ instead of cabins. I’m just writing and putting my progress in, which is fine, but I always gave more to my cabins than I got. You can have writing buddies, though. Of course, I don’t know any, since they’ve already deleted all the contacts in the old system.

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