Hobbies are Work!

Yikes! The physical draft of my next book is here, and now I have to proofread it!

That’s the problem with self-publishing. Proofing your own writing is a hard work. But I labor on womanfully. In fact, I have already covered the draft with orange marks. (The first writing implement to come to hand was one of the boys’ old coloring pencils.)

I had already tried the following approaches to proofreading, but it is amazing how many problems come to light when you change to a totally different medium – in this case a printed book.

• Changing the font and size. This changes the text wrap and breaks up the writer’s visual memory of the words.
• Asking others to read it. This is not a perfect approach. For example, the hubby is great at spotting missing words but is totally blind to plot holes.
• Using a grammar and style aid. I have been using ProWritingAid, and it helped spot a myriad of problems.

And still there are more errors to find!

If I get everything done, ‘Prince’ will be published on April Fool’s Day. I couldn’t think of a better day to do it. In the meantime, the book is on preorder. The amazon.com link is below.

And the amazon.co.uk link follows:

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