August 2026 - Editing in the Gaps

This month has been a one of editing — although perhaps not quite in the way you might imagine.

Some of it happened at home. Some happened in those odd pockets of time squeezed between my day job and everything else life throws at me. And quite a bit happened while travelling back from ten days in Italy, where again I found odd pockets of time, usually in the time after saying good night to my daughter and my own bedtime.

In June 2026 I spoke of investing in a Remarkable Paper Pro as my notebook and that this edit was the first time upon using the device to transpose my handwriting into text. My aim was to see if this would help speed up my editing process. I'm pleased to report that it has been quite amazing how well it has done. I am truly impressed with it and it has massively changed how and when I can do my editing.

In years gone by my first stage is always hand written, even though I can touch type the inspiration doesn't flow quite the same as when I have a pen and paper. Then once I had that first draft completed (or what I hope is complete anyway) I would begin the laborious task of typing it up. It took me forever because having the notebook and laptop to hand, with enough power, with enough space was a delicate procedure and not for most environments. I would somewhat revise what I was typing, making the odd corrections as I went, but mostly it was just getting it onto the Word document. Then I would save and save again as a new file, with 2 columns per page. Whilst editing on my second book For the Love of Africa I realised that if I printing double sided, with the columns, I could still edit, but I was only cutting down one tree not two! The print out was stored in a paper folder and I had a dedicated notebook that I would put the edits into. As I read through I numbered where changes needed to be made on the printed copy and then wrote the amendment with the corresponding number in the notebook. Following that I would go through and add those changes to the original document, saving the new one as draft 2. Then that is how I would keep going until I was satisfied that it was in a good enough state to send to my editor, usually somewhere around edit four or five.

This month though I am already editing! It's amazing!

The conversion of each page took around a minute, maybe longer, maybe less; in this fast paced world anything over 3 seconds feels slow. I joined those conversions together, downloaded them and saved it to a Word file. Something that used to take me 3-6 months to do, now took less than a working day to complete. Then all I've needed to do is take my laptop with me or have a way that I can get to my OneDrive and away I go. Most of the time Word is able to tell me where I have left off, but just in case the different devices aren't quite in sync I highlight the paragraph that I got up to so it's easy to find.

The main issues I have had, have been more around how I write them and I can understand where it hasn't quite converted correctly. These are the letters that my Remarkable has struggled to be able to recognise correctly:

a / o

h / k

q / g

t / l

However, I feel that's fairly acceptable now that I've looked at my writing. Even I struggle sometimes. Apart from that, what I found myself doing was starting the editing process. I've found parts where I had to work out what it was I was trying to say, others where I feel like that day I forgot where the story was going, both completely normal, simply earlier than normal when I compare it to previous books. Yet it has been exciting and a pleasure to read as there has been some parts that I had completely forgotten I had written and honestly felt like it was the first time reading them. That is something of my editing process that has remained the same, where editing your own book is sometimes becoming a reader of your own story.

Perhaps this will mean I'll hit my goal of getting this next book to my editor for Christmas 2026!