Louise Broderick

Every little helps!

Tired as am working on my other job as well at the moment. Only sheer bloody mindedness keeps bringing me back to the words. This challenge is a great incentive.

Still working on my editors corrections. I'm at the hump stage in the editing where I despair of every getting finished and feeling the story is awful and that I haven't done a good enough job. Can't wait to get this finished and out of my head.

Love this challenge, I probably wouldn't have done any editing without this. Was working last night, so pretty tired, but the thought of not updating my words drove me to the laptop.

Back to work, feeling particularly lifeless and unmotivated, but I know unless I work on my edits it won't get finished. Working with an editor is expensive - money well spent I know, but unless I keep at it the money is wasted.

I really feel any money I spend on my editor is money well spent. I love how she sees my characters as well as I do, but more than that, she can see how I haven't shown my readers what is in my head, what I know about my characters and the plot. Progress has been slow today reeling from the not unexpected loss of my oldest dog, Skye who has been my bestie for the last 16 and a half years, hard supporting my kids, who are scattered all over the world in a loss of what has felt like losing a sibling. Life on the farm is tough just at the moment, with a goat who has been at death's door and who is hopefully recovering, and a much loved horse who is also struggling with multiple problems, all combined with both my vehicles needing big jobs doing - meant that while it was hard to get the mindset to work on my book, it was also great to lose myself in it for a while. I've found over the many, many years I've been a writer that it is such a relief to sink into a world I can control when all around is in chaos.

More editing. I'm at the stage of longing to move away from this rubbish I've written. How nice would it be just to press delete and forget about ever writing a book again. Writing is like an addiction, I love it, I hate it, but relentlessly I keep on. I'm longing to get this book finished and get to know the characters in my next book who are dancing just out of reach at the moment.

More edits. quite a lot of changes being made. My protagonist's best friend died in the original version, written just after my dad and step mum died within weeks of one another. So clearly a lot of 'stuff' I needed to write out of my soul. However my editor felt - quite rightly - that my protagonist had too much going on in her life and the death of her best friend was too much. Authors have the power over life and death and so Lydia, the friend lives, untouched by cancer, although there is another crisis for the two friends to deal with. Throughout my writing career I have always plotted very carefully and fully - this book was more of a pantser - and now I'm paying for that as there is so much editing to be done. Lesson for the future.

Carrying on with the edits. Hate this going backwards and forwards checking, but I love improving my writing, making sure my books are the best they can possibly be. Thank you Sarah my wonderful editor, I've learned so much from you.

word count reflects working on editor's comments and rewrites rather than a fresh batch of words.