The Crush crushed Emery’s heart.

The Fall made her fall in love again.

Now, it’s time for Emery to dream.

That’s right, my friend. Now that it’s been a few months since The Fall released, I’ve entered the first editing stages of the final book in The Ballad of Emery Brooks trilogy, The Dream. How are things going so far? Honestly, better than I anticipated.

First Read Through: November 2022

Like with The Fall, I decided to complete the first read through of The Dream just after The Fall released back in November so the previous installment would still be fresh in my mind. For the first read through, I try not to make any editing notes at all; instead, I just try to identify if there are any major problems in the manuscript that need to be tackled first.

Going in, I was terrified that the book would be an incomprehensible mess, because 1) I struggled, for months, to write this book, and 2) I wrote the last 4,000+ words all in one day, and expected it to read like a toddler’s gibberish manifesto.

I ended up in tears when I finished reading it, but not for either of the reasons above. All those months I struggled to fix The Dream were worth it. The first draft, while not perfect by any means (no manuscript ever is!), came out much better than I anticipated.

There are a couple small areas I’ve identified that need work, one being that I completely forgot to mention Porter, Grandpa Amos’s Basset Hound, anywhere in the book and need to let readers know what happens to him. The second will involve a little more effort, and it’s just that Jace’s extended family gets introduced in this book, and I need to add more scenes where his cousins are present. I’ll also need to write two or three new songs for Emery (Lord, help me!). Other than that, I’m really happy with the pacing and how the story lines all turn out.

Second Read Through/First Round of Edits: January 2023

My second read through, this time meant for the first round of edits, was completed in January 2023, and whew… I don’t know how some of these typos happened, but they were funny. XD

During this edit, I basically went through and looked for all those things I intentionally didn’t look for during the first read through: punctuation, typos, grammar, awkward sentences, etc. I like to do a round of this early on, because I get easily distracted by things like this during edits, and if I take care of the bulk of them now, it’ll help me focus on more important aspects on later read-throughs, like characterization, continuity, etc.

I was hoping to complete these edits in February and do the second read through in March, but my husband and I have been busy almost every weekend for the last month, and I’ve struggled with anxiety over a personal issue over the past couple weeks, so as of the second to last week in March, I still have to edit the last 30% of The Dream to complete the first round. Lord willing, I will finish up those changes before this post goes live on March 29th, but we’ll see. 🙂

Talk to Me, Arrowheads!

If you’re a writer, are you currently editing a manuscript? What’s your manuscript about, and where are you at in your editing process?

If you’re a reader and are wondering when The Dream will be released… it is looking like 2024 (possibly later) right now. We’ll see what God decides, though!

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀