I only have forty pages left in the fourth edit of Rini & Butler! Woohoo!

Granted, they are the pages where I need to do the most work, but I’m now so close to finishing the edit that I’m really excited by it.

I remember now that I was meant to kind of document the process of writing and editing Rini & Butler and I don’t know if I’ve done a lot of that. I did write some pieces about how it was coming along and what was going on during its development whilst I was still at university and then afterwards when I was doing some experimental pieces with the perspectives of the characters.

Right now, I’m refining the manuscript and sorting out any plot kinks that were either picked up in Draft #3 or weren’t completely fixed from Draft #2. I’m also line-editing again and trying to make sure I get rid of all the contractions in Butler’s dialogue. Ever since the beginning, Butler was designed to speak without any contractions in his dialogue, everything is formal speech. But that hasn’t stopped me from accidentally slipping in one or two, and so I’m focusing on catching any that slip through. Rini speaks mostly with contractions, and so I think sometimes when the dialogue is levelling between them, I’ve quickly rush through without thinking and I’ve managed to let a few slip through during tired edits. I think once I have finished this draft, they should all be gone.

The major edits will be happening in the next forty pages because the novel was originally longer. It got to the point where I realised that it would make more sense to cut it and just turn the excess into a sequel and work on it, as I really can’t cram what it explores into the first novel anymore. And so there are some pacing issues, and it does apparently read that I’ve just cut off a section, despite there still being a resolution. And so that’s the main thing I have to finish fixing.