The, the, the

I’ve completed yet another read through on Far to the North. This is my first reading after having it filtered through the eyes of a line editor, and while some errors still persisted, the manuscript is becoming nice and clean. This is a difficult process, trying to make 128k words become error free, and it’s made me respect the line-editing profession a lot more. Personally, I don’t see how people can do it. Scouring each line searching for every little oopsie-daisy that exists. Not my thing. More power to those who are successful at it.

However, what caught my interest more on this reading—especially since I’ve gone through this manuscript so many times—is how often I use the word ‘the.’

I use ‘the’ a lot. A lot.

And while I’m bummed to be discovering this tendency so late in the game, I’m happy to have caught it at all. It’s a correction that can be made without too much trouble, though it does mean another reading of the book. I was probably going to do that anyway, but now it’s official.

Now I’m at the point where I need to learn how to format and upload… something I’m dreading, but there are guides and I have the time, so no excuses. Other people have learned to do it. I can learn too. My current plan is to do the formatting first and then another read to kill more ‘the‘s and be done. Still need to do a cover, but Far to the North is very close to being a finished product.