The last time I completed the final edits of a novel was back in 2018. The book was called Snap. It was my first long submission and received several polite rejections. A couple years later, I submitted a novella called The Preposterous Theater, which was deservedly rejected.

Now my novel M: The Plastic Prometheus has just a few more edits and then I’ll be done. I was still in my writing infancy when I wrote Snap and The Preposterous Theater. With this current novel, I think I’ve progressed a lot. I still have a long, long way to go, but I have more confidence than I did before.

My old method was to throw words at a page and hope that they worked. Usually, they didn’t. Now through a combination of good advice, experience, and self-growth, I’ve started to understand the craft better and I’m more thoughtful with what I put on the page.

This last month hasn’t been very exciting as I work my way through the manuscript with a red pen. I keep a printout of all my editor’s advice next to me, and slowly but surely, I’ve managed to incorporate his notes.

One of the first things my editor told me was that nothing needed to be removed, but rather added to. He said between 12K-15K words. It doesn’t look like I’ll reach those numbers. But I’ve managed to add 9K, putting it at a comfortable 50K words.

I discover little discrepancies each time I go over a draft—tiny details that contradict each other. For instance, one character I describe as having crooked yellow teeth when later it says he wore dentures. These seem never-ending, two taking the place of every one I fix.

There is still a long road ahead of me with M. I have half a draft left, followed by a quick readthrough to catch any grammatical errors. After that, it’s off to my beta readers. Then after that, prospective publishers. But as I said, it’s been five years since I’ve been this close and that feels great.

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Tchau,

Zé