The Great SEABOUND Revision of 2014

Hi guys. I’m back on my island in the South China Sea, and I’ve been living and breathing SEABOUND.

My superstar writers’ group read the full manuscript over the summer and we got together for a major critique session on lucky September 13th. They’ve read chapters before and always had nice, gushing things to say about the book. But for this session, we got down to brass tacks, sorting out exactly what I still needed to do to get the book ready for prime time.

Here’s how it went down.

1) The group read the latest version of the manuscript (possibly the fifth draft?).

2) I bought sea-themed snacks for everyone to thank them for making this month’s session all about me.

3) We dug into the manuscript and discussed the characters, plot points, weak spots, and overarching ideas. We determined three specific places where I needed to add chapters.

4) I spent Sunday reading over the feedback and outlining my mission for the next draft.

5) Beginning on Monday, September 15th, I spent 6-8 hours per day doing a major rewrite and not thinking about anything but SEABOUND the rest of the time. This lasted for 10 days.

6) The manuscript went from 69,000 words to 80,000 words in length. The new chapters raise the stakes big time.

7) I printed out the manuscript and read through the whole thing on Friday the 26th. This took 8 hours.

8) The copy editor I’ve had my eye on for a while turned out to be free. After I made the changes from the final read, I sent him the manuscript.

Now, we wait.

If you want to get an email when SEABOUND launches, please add your address here. I’ll do a secret $0.99 sale for subscribers before I announce the e-book.

Thanks, guys. Now I’m off to Taiwan! When I get back, I’ll post the cover and the blurb, so you’ll know what the book is actually about.