I have two books due by March 1.
Oh, I’m also doing a major redecorating project in the living room and the gym. Yes, I felt the need to move, so I rearranged furniture instead (a legacy of being an Air Force brat). This time, however, I hired some movers to actually haul the furniture around. (I have yet to unpack boxes, however.)
I know I’ll make both deadlines (oops, make that three – I have a novella to finish). Know why? I am relentlessly dogmatic.
My tenacity is one of my greatest assets. It is also one of my greatest flaws. Long after other people have quit the field of battle, I keep soldiering on. Sometimes, it has turned out to help me. Sometimes, it hasn’t.
However, I have a lot of great tools at my disposal and I intend to use every single one of them. For example, Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the first draft of the book. Scrivener for the second draft, and my Kindle to read the third draft. I’ll segue back to Dragon to read the final draft aloud to me. It’s helpful for me to hear the manuscript spoken by another voice. I catch lots of errors that way. Plus, I have editing programs I use – one of them called WriteIt! – and another called Editor. They find redundancies, abbreviations and spellings that are different, as well as capitalizations that aren’t consistent. Those are things I don’t notice after I’ve studied a manuscript for so long.
Wish me luck. And you might want to burn some incense.
How about you? Do you have invaluable tools to help you in your daily tasks?