Happy April, everyone!
It’s been pointed out to me by the lovely Celeste DeWolfe that I haven’t blogged since January. Whoops! My incredible bad. Here goes!
Since my January post, I’ve been plugging away at editing Cerulean Bound. I rewrote a ton of stuff, added a bunch of new scenes, completely changed one of my villain’s motivations, etc. I finally finished going through all the editing notes, and now I am at the stage of “re-read the book again and make sure all the edits actually make sense.” This is my favorite type of editing, because I’ve hypothetically worked out all the kinks, so I shouldn’t have any big things to change — just enjoy the story, and hopefully shave off a few thousand words in the process. Streamline, baby!
Once the re-read’s done, I’m going to send it back to my alpha reader and editor for a second go-through. Hopefully they’ll have fewer notes this time, which would mean once I correct the new stuff, I’ll be able to start sending the book out to beta readers. From there … another round of editing, maybe two? My editor is a perfectionist, which is great in that it means the end product is always top-notch, but terrible in that it takes forever to do anything. (I love you, Mom!)
In life news, I recently went to Disney World with my mother, brother, and best friend. It was lots of fun — we ate, we drank, we rode assorted roller coasters, we ooh-ed and ahh-ed at fireworks, etc. Thank goodness for Fast Passes — waiting two hours in line for a 90 second ride is just silly. Some of my travelling companions got hit with a nasty cold during the vacation, but I ate many oranges and managed to escape the virus … until I returned home, and it walloped me in the face. I am now sniffling in my fluffy bathrobe with a mug of hot tea, surrounded by tissues, vitamin C, and throat lozenges. Nooooooooo!
I’m off to make cookies after this, then get down to some freelance proofreading work. (By the way, if anyone needs any proofreading done, hit me up!) Once that’s done, it’s back to editing Cerulean Bound. I’ve also started re-reading Imminent Danger and Chasing Nonconformity, in a valiant attempt to make sure I don’t contradict myself in book 3.
I’ll check back in when I’ve got more news on Cerulean Bound. I know it’s been a long while since book 2 was released, but hopefully there are still a few people out there excited to read book 3!
Have a great week, and stay awesome 🙂
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Go Team Proulx!
Woot!
Thanks for continuing to keep us updated! I am really excited to read book 3.
And I’m really excited for you to read it 🙂 I’ve sent the book off for another round of editing (just last night, actually), so we’re getting there slowly but surely. The finish line is in sight!
Good news, except for the sniffles, but hey — better to go through that at home than on your holiday! Also it means you have to stay home and edit. I’ve just started revisiting the early chapters of my WIP, and my plot weakness detector is going off, so guess what I’ll be doing.
Editing is at once the most rewarding and most frustrating thing in the world. Happy plot-fixing!
Also, I’m pleased to announce I seem to have mastered my cold. I only had a few coughing fits yesterday, and I can breathe like an actual normal human being. Huzzah!
😊
What ?
I’m looking forward to the next installment!
I know you stopped using iUniverse for your publishing. Are you using any service for proofreading and formatting these days? My historical romance is half-in, half-out of being published (there’s a paperback copy, but no ebook version). I just don’t have the time or patience to do the formatting anymore and I’m not as poor as I used to be, so I’ve been thinking about getting some service to do the publishing part for me.
Sorry for taking so long to respond! I’ve gotten so bad about blogging these days. I do the formatting myself, and I have a friend who proofreads for me. But I’ve seen people around the internet who’ll do both for you for … a couple hundred bucks, probably?