A little behind the scenes into my process. This is how it looks when I first begin my deep edits. Colorful! lol Not only do I have my editor’s notes, AND my own notes to go through, but I do this.

(Achieved by opening document in old Word 2002, searching and highlighting certain words, then saving the document – the highlights stay!)

Reason? It pinpoints specific details in my eye (colors are just to give a variety, nothing special) and ensures that my brain doesn’t overlook certain statements. It’s not “delete this word and that word” as much as simply asking my brain to make SURE that sentence says what it needs to and gives the feeling to the reader that I need it to. That it belongs as is. As well as bringing my focus down to the story in the most basic form. Can’t explain it better than that. I don’t focus as much on the WORDS that are highlighted as the sentence, flow, and story. Cuts down my editing time so much.

And yes, this is still fairly rough draft so no need to point out issues. 🙂