Ang Shaef Writes

This post was originally published in October 2022. We've come a long way, baby.   Sometimes-- a lot of times --on my writing journey, I've had to silence the inner critic. For several years I didn't even tell anyone I was writing a book.  Because who knew how far I'd actually get? What if I never got past the first chapter?  Or the first draft? What if I found out I was a crappy writer and never got better? Or what if I never found the time to work on it so it just stalled out  as little more than a few scenes scrapped together? No one wants to announce a goal just to have it fizzle out,   imagining the whole world wondering what ever happened with their big idea?  Or worse, confirming the whole world's suspicions you'd never be able to do it. But after I finished a first draft, started my writer's group and had some positive feedback in classes, I became more brave in telling people I was writing a book. Now I've got a finished manuscript, and though...

  My book's interior formatting preview came this week! I'm sooooo in love with the fonts they chose! I've been working all day on finalizing the acknowledgments  and book club discussion questions. (Also binged the last half of season 2 of Bad Sisters on Apple TV. Soooo good!)

  Today I posted on Instagram my news that I'd written a book. I received so many supportive comments, cheers and congrats I've been practically flying! There was a time I didn't tell anyone I was working on a book. Didn't want to share my dream. What if I couldn't actually accomplish it? And now... six years later, I've done it.

  Dan spent time the last three days reading my book and making notes. Lots of tabs are mostly proofreading errors (to be expected after all my redlining), but also great notes on areas that need a few sentences of clarification. We went through his notes, but he also let me grill him on his feelings throughout every chapter  and paragraphs or scenes that were special to me.  We didn't always see eye-to-eye on the characters' behaviors, which is exactly what I want. Tissues for tears as we talked it through. And some scenes he said, "I can't talk more about that one without crying, but it was good." We say the book is sad because we cry a lot and there are lots of sad parts. But much of the emotion comes from hopeful scenes full of love and tenderness.  So I'm getting away from calling it sad , and instead prefer to label it as emotional . It's a big difference.

  I printed another copy of my book after last week's revisions and started reading through again. Its a unique type of torture to read through the book you wrote,  not once, but twice, in the same week, out loud, so you are paying attention to every word and every sentence. 

I have a big to-do list this week, including re-reading my entire book for the final proofreading round. I've read it soooo many times cover to cover, cleaning up typos, eliminating filter words and adverbs and repeated words, clarifying scenes with description or deleting description for clarity. And every time I think, ta-da! it's perfect!  A few months go by and I read it again and I find so much more to improve. I made it through 200 pages finding better ways to say: laughed. whispered. heart pounded. snorted. idiot. gazed. sweet. shrugged.  colorful. glass. piece. adverbs like slowly and carefully. and many, many other filler words. I can tell the chapters that I wrote for classes and those that weren't reviewed. Because even though I've proofread so much and they've been through several beta readers,  they're still chock full of repeated words.