Work in Progress -- the Next Generation

The Book Formerly Known as Work in Progress now goes by another name -- Submitted. Yep, that's right -- it winged its way out of my hands this morning. So now my attention immediately shifts to my next project (not because I'm on a deadline, but because I'm compulsive and can't help myself).

Back in 2003, I was exhausted. I had spent two years researching and writing "Nothing to Regret" and "Strength to Endure," and the historical details I uncovered while looking at the atomic bomb, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the internment camps and then the concentration camps in Europe wore me out. While only a tenth of those details made it into the final books, I had seen enough to age me a decade. Needing to write something lighter for just a little while, I wrote "Faith Beyond Fear," which is a suspense/romance/mystery/comedy.

I ran it past Willard Boyd Gardner, not only an author but former SWAT, and he gave me some great tips on police procedure and phraseology. As I went in to make those changes, I noticed about 24,000 other things that needed to be changed as well (darn that continual progression thing) and so now I'm going into rewrite mode. I think it should only take me eight weeks, but we'll see how that pans out.

Now, this book was written in 2003. I've learned so much since then, and I was curious -- just how badly does this old book stink? I ran some searches on this manuscript and this is what I discovered:

Current Word Count: 46,763
Times I used the word "that": 585
Times I used the word "was": 550
Times I used the word "suddenly": 13
Times I used the word "the": 3,121
Times I used the word "eyes": 71
Times I used a semicolon: 72

It would appear that my work is cut out for me. I'll post my count after I'm done weeding and we'll see how we do. Be prepared for lots of virtual editing workshops coming out of this book.