I finished the first draft of Finding Us! I don’t have a release date yet and probably won’t for a few more weeks. But I’ll keep you posted!

As with all the Jade books, I LOVED writing this. I love Jade and Garret and it’s fun to follow them into the next stage of their lives.

The photo shows the book all printed out. As you can see, there are lots of pages. Currently, it’s about as long as Promising You, which is the longest book in the series. But that will change once I tear it apart during the edit process.

The next step is that I’ll take the printed pages and note any major edits that need to be made, like scenes I want to change, cut, or add. That involves a lot of rewrites so this step takes a while. Then the book goes to beta read and when it’s back I’ll spend several weeks doing more extensive edits.

The editing process takes much longer than the actual writing part. When I write, it flows out of my head so quickly I can barely type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. This free-flowing writing style works better for me than trying to outline the book. Outlining’s never worked for me.

Editing takes longer than writing because I have to really dig into each page, figuring out how one scene relates to the next, if that scene is necessary or should be cut, if the pacing is too slow or fast, if the dialogue and actions of the characters fit them and where I’m taking them, if there’s adequate inclusion of the side characters, and so forth. Those are just a few of the things I consider when editing, so you can see why it takes forever.

That’s why I don’t have a release date yet. It’s too early to know how long it’ll take to get the edits done. I would love to have the book out late September or early October so that’s what I’m shooting for, as of now.