Edits done

I'm done editing my book, and the manuscript is now in the hands of proofreaders. I went through two rounds of editing. In the first round, I changed about 25% of the text, either fixing mistakes, tightening the story, or fleshing out something that I thought needed more elaboration. Because of how much I changed, I wanted to go through it again from beginning to end. But first, I took a week off from the manuscript so that it wouldn't be so fresh in my mind. The second round resulted in only minor changes to less than 5% of the story.

I'm satisfied that the book is close to as good as it'll get without feedback from someone other than myself. That's what I'm waiting for now -- independent and (more) objective feedback. I have no idea whether that will result in major changes or minor tweaks. I expect to find out next month.

In the meantime, I'm working on a short story. It's an idea that I've been turning around in my head, but I didn't want to devote any time to it until I was done writing my book. Now, while I have a break, it's a good way to keep practicing the craft and scratch an itch at the same time.