After almost two weeks in Italy I’m ready to get on that
plane tomorrow and come home…back to reality if you will. It’s been a great two weeks, but I’m ready
to sleep in my own bed and be in own house again after a couple of hectic weeks
of editing and non-stop writing. Almost
as if I need a holiday from my holiday, not sure I want to tell my boss that…
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| Lake Como - my home for the past two weeks |
My progress to date has been good with seventeen chapters edited
and high hopes of perhaps finishing another couple between today and tomorrow when
I arrive home. Realistically I’m going
to need about 24 – 27 chapters to meet the 70,000 word requirement, which
translates roughly into a 220 – 230 page book when its all said and done. Yes, still much work to do!
I’ve learned a lot through this process; firstly that my early
writing was rather poor and somewhat patchy…and that on reflection much of it
needed to be re-written with the exception of a couple of good stories thrown
into the mix. Secondly that the process
of editing is not for the faint of heart, it’s a laborious task that requires a
lot of patience and attention to detail. And finally the more I read my work the less
it made sense – go figure! I think
I’ve gotten to the point of reading it too much which is rather disconcerting
given that I have to have the darn manuscript ready for submission by the third
week of August. That being said I
realized that to be effective I needed to try to read each chapter as though it
was my first time, through the eyes of a new reader each time.
As well, this week’s blog commemorates a rather important
milestone in that it marks the 100th blog in the series. Its almost impossible to believe that a
hundred weeks ago I started writing my weekly stories, initially to share with
you the journey of my preparation for the hike in Papua New Guinea in 2011. Since that time I’ve written over 130,000
words and still counting…
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| This morning at the Duomo in Milan |
It’s been an amazing journey so far and I wanted to thank
everyone of you who’ve read my blog over those 100 weeks, yes all 25,000 of
you! Never in a million years would I
have believed it, if someone had told me that I would be a writer one day and
getting ready to publish a book let alone have a weekly blog that’s read by
hundreds of people from around the world each week…it’s completely mind
blowing!
I’m sorry that this week’s blog is again relatively short,
but as you can imagine there is a bit of a time crunch on and I need to make a
final push to finish my manuscript so I can get it in by the end of next week.
Thanks again for your love and support, I certainly couldn’t
have done it without you all.
Ciao - TW
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