Time Keeps on Slipping

I've been editing. The first draft of HIDDEN GRIMOIRE is complete, which means now I have to go back and fix the mess I made.

One of the most consistent mistakes I make is the passage of time. I'm one of those people who struggle with this in my daily life. When is your birthday? What day is today? Was I suppose to remember that? These days, I use Alexa to tell me every morning what's on my calendar so I don't forget. I thought I'd come up with a fail-safe way to keep track while I was writing, by adding days in my chapter heads as I write. #Fail.

I'm about 1/4 through doing chapter summaries and tracking continuity, my first editing pass. In each summary, I put the day and date. And guess what? Even though I thought I was tracking the days, I missed one. SURPRISE! I'm nothing if not consistent. Keeping my fingers crossed that my missing day doesn't have a ripple effect, but the good part about the book is there isn't a critical time stamp. I just have to make sure Brynn isn't working on her day off, or that there isn't a place where a time warp makes a difference. This really is the hardest part, the documenting and tracking.

My next pass will be for overused and filler words, and then I can read through the whole darn thing to see how it holds together. At that point, it should be "editor ready."

Does anyone else struggle with the concept of time the way I do? I'm never late for an appointment, always early, but when it comes to days of the week? Personal holidays? I need all the help I can get.

Hey, one last thing. Have you read FAMILY ALCHEMY? UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES? If you have and haven't left a review, I'd love to know what you thought. HIDDEN GRIMOIRE will be book #3 in the Hillendale series, and I'm contemplating "what comes next." Do you want to see more of Brynn and Hillendale? As an author, I have dozens of stories in my head at any given time, including a potential Hillendale 4. Or "something completely different." So many choices! What do you think?