π The developmental review lands today
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Hello Reader, It's Tuesday morning, the kettle's on, and I just realised I skipped a week! The heat got to me. I gotta tell ya, the UK isn't really built for 30+ degrees, and neither am I. The kettle stayed off. The emails stayed unwritten. The book stayed in the holding pattern from the week before. I went and lay flat for a few days like a sensible person :) (well not quite but as much as I could!) Anyway, here's the exciting news. By the time you're reading this email, the manuscript is no longer in a holding pattern. The developmental review will be back. Let me tell you why that's a moment. A developmental review isn't a proofread. It's not someone checking spellings and commas. It's a professional editor looking at the manuscript as a whole and telling me what's strong, what's weak, and what would take the book from good to great. It incorporates everything you've been telling me in your comments. Every "Useful". Every "Confusing". Every "Love this". Every "Thought" you left. All of it gets pulled together and turned into a map of the work that's still to do. So when I open that document this morning, I'm not just reading the editor's view. I'm reading what 84 readers, including you, helped them see. Isn't that quite the thing? I've seen one of these before. John Meese, the beloved leader of the Authority Guild I'm part of, had his developmental review back recently and shared it with his authors. Watching what he did with it taught me more about writing a book than any course could have. I'm looking forward to my turn! Here's where we are this morning:84 readers.β By the way, that's not the real cover. AND that completed box is incorrect - several readers have completed (tech!). Anyway, if you've left even one of those 677 reactions, this is genuinely your work too. Here's a couple that caught my attention: The first is from a reader who's been thoroughly through the book and left comments all the way along. He left this one on a line in Chapter 8 Visibility is not performance. It's permission. "Any time you open with a clear hook for a story, I'm on the edge of my seat. I know these are going to be the most memorable parts of the book, and that I'm likely to walk away from the story a slightly different person, and those micro-transformations are why I put up with learning." The phrase that landed for me was "those micro-transformations are why I put up with learning." He's naming what he's doing as he reads. He's not absorbing my teaching. He's noticing the small shifts in himself as the stories land. The hooks are doors. He's the one walking through. That's the whole brief. And then, on a different sentence, in a different chapter, another reader left this: "this sentence is a bit befuddled." That's the entire comment. I love that one almost as much as the first. Because that's a reader doing the work too. Five words. No softening. Just a true thing about a sentence that didn't land. And the editor will see that comment when he works through the manuscript, and the sentence will get fixed, and the next reader will read a slightly cleaner book because of it. Both reactions are gifts. The long one and the five-word one. The editor's job is made easier by both. So here's what's happening today. I open the developmental review document. I sit with it. I let the work the readers have done speak through the editor's notes. And then I start rewriting where I need to. I've blocked out 3 hours a day for the next week to work through the comments and suggestions chapter by chapter. And then you'll get a new version, on the same platform. If you have a friend who'd benefit from being on this journey, the Β£3 Advance Reader ebook is still here:
This is what crafting a book looks like behind the scenes. A heat wave, a holding pattern, a developmental review, and 84 readers shaping the manuscript into the book it's meant to be. I'll let you know what the editor said next Tuesday. Probably with the kettle on. With love and activation, MamaJ π« P.S. The line from the first reader's comment that's going to stay with me is "those micro-transformations are why I put up with learning." βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ πΊοΈ Read The Guilt-Free Calling hereβ β¨ About Impact Activator β βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ |