Yesterday I mocked up a cover for my #SecretBookProject and used Scrivener, my word processor of choice, to export what I’ve written as a PDF and sent it to my iPad. This is not something I’m sharing as it will give the game away but it’s a fun little exercise and it helps me identify books visually rather than the generic Books icon. When I eventually change this series’ slug, I’ll share the banner, a variant on said DIY cover, but for now, know that it looks awesome, and the actual cover art will be a billion times cooler.
I would print it, my manuscript, but the whole vision thing is an issue and, honestly, while it is cool to print it, I much prefer working digitally. I even bought a new Apple Pencil Pro for the occasion (my bigger iPad doesn’t work with the older Pencil…)
I love Scrivener for many reasons: auto-save, auto-backups, hacing each document as a stand alone, it’s so much more workable than Word, and much less buggy too. But the real MVP here is the ability to export to ePub, Word, Rich Text and a dozen other formats. I like doing it to PDF because then I can go in and manually mark up each page in Books, noting errors, things I need to fix or just notes for myself about something needing clarification or better connective tissue.
Editing is cathartic. But it’s also time-consuming. Doing it digitally means I can do it anywhere, on the bus to Norwich, at Costa, waiting for a movie to start… I hate wasting time and, given that the draft is due in a month (and I am on schedule to meet it), I hate to just waste time.
I also need background noise, so I’ve taken to spending the morning in Costa, put on a movie and get some work done, then head home, put on a TV series (I’m currently rewatching House of the Dragon) on my big TV and sit and work. I’ll be keeping odd hours for a few weeks as my PT is on holiday, meaning I have no real commitments bar any job interviews (I remain hopeful in that respect…) This is prime editing time, especially as another heatwave (🤬🤬🤬) is due next week so I want to use every hour I can, including leaving this for a week to sit, and have formated and uploaded to a Google Doc.
As you can see, I’ve not hit my target despite the deadline being tomorrow. This is intentional. I want to give myself some space to finish everything up. I might cut some stuff but, honestly, it’s 90% done. I even went through and finalised the chapters (with Roman numerals and everthing; there are XXII, plus a prefact, introduction, acknowledgements and at least one appendix). A couple of the titles need a bit more work but that’s also a part of the process for me. The last part is just finishing up for flow, fact-checking and the editing pass itself.
But we are so nearly there, and I’m—in the words of my friend—buzzing with excitement. Once it’s submitted, I can take a much-deserved week off (for Hyper Japan) and then think about my next project!
Until next time!
#SecretBookProject: From Pitch to Publication is a periodic series in which Asha discusses writing their first non-fiction book.