Last weekend, I helped my parents clean up around their place.  It helped keep my mind off the holiday and kept me busy.  They had a dead tree that had fallen in their side yard that needed taken care of, and knowing that it was covered in poison oak, I wore long pants and gloves to drag it to their burn pile piece by piece.  Despite being very careful, I somehow managed to get a pretty good rash from it.  The first red splotches didn’t appear until Wednesday but by Thursday, I looked pretty bad and started itching like crazy.

On a different note, I got the final proof of the new poster from Rob Brown.  Let me know what you think of it:

I survived the holiday weekend.  I took off the 4th, didn’t even really think about the book, but Friday, Sunday, and Monday, I exceeded my daily page goal, so I’m making good progress.  Chapter six is coming along pretty nicely, and I like the direction everything is going.  I finish my summer school class tonight and turn in grades tomorrow, so my plan is to spend the next month really busting my butt to get up to chapter eight and maybe even nine before school starts back.  I’ll have to slow way down in the fall because of my teaching schedule, but if I can get up to eight or nine by then, I can still finish the rough draft by January.

Then comes the real work, the polishing and editing.  For this book, I plan to spend a good five to six months editing each chapter, each scene, and each sentence.  I want this book to be the best so far, and what separates mediocre writing from good and good from great is the willingness to polish and rewrite, so for this book I plan to work with a couple of editors and spend as much time as it takes to get it right.

I know several of you want it done as soon as possible, but I’d rather take my time and get it right, than rush it and disappoint.

www.thirdaxe.com