A Very Invigorating and Enjoyable Experience

Yesterday I spent six or seven hours working through the edits and rewrites Kevin recommended for chapters two and three. It was exciting for me to see how Kevin's suggestions helped me reshape content (especially in chapter three, which is more theologically dense than most of the other chapters) in ways that will make it more accessible to the reader.

Kevin had already moved some stuff around to clarify the flow of thought (see the elusive goal of linearity). But this, along with some of his suggested rewrites, helped me see ways to make the chapter even better by (i) simplifying an overly technical section of the chapter that needlessly introduced new theological concepts and (ii) making the final 1/4 of the chapter more concrete in application.

I'm now discovering for myself how thrilling it can be to work with an editor who really helps you find your voice and clarify your content. In contrast to many of the days in writing the manuscript, when it was hard labor to crank out sentences, the time I spent rewriting yesterday flew by and seemed very productive.

In one of my e-mails to Kevin, I said, "I’m excited, by the way, about how your edits/suggestions are helping me clarify the content! This is turning out to be a very invigorating and enjoyable experience." After looking over the reworked chapters, he wrote, "Based on a quick read, I’d say good improvements in every way."

Next week I'll do the rewriting for chapter four. In the meantime, Kevin has done the line editing for chapters five and six, and is now working on seven.