Summer's here, which means I'm freed up from my day job, and have more time to work on my writing. By more time, I mean all the time I want. Which is good, because getting a book polished enough to publish takes a lot of time.
I've been burned on editing before, I paid a lot of money and received numerous complaints on the quality of the job, so I now personally go over my draft numerous times, as well as have my writing-critique group go over it. I've got a whole process for this, and it works really well. The only problem is that it takes a lot of time. My critique group is probably the aspect that takes the most. We meet every two weeks and go over 20 pages of each others books (but if you're Quinn, you only do 15 pages). Once I have my critique-group's comments, it takes me about a month to edit through my manuscript with them. Then another few days of full time editing to get all the material added (or cut) that I want, and then another full day to get the typos. After that I spend a week or so getting the cover ready, and the description of the book for Amazon. And this all happens after having spent three months writing the first draft. It's fun, and I enjoy each step of the process (editing is actually my favorite part), but it is worth stating that it is a time consuming process.
I'm unfortunately a person who often cares about other people's opinions. Or, at least in select situations. Like most people, I'm a walking-contradiction, but for the sake of this anecdote, let's just say I often care too much about other people's opinions. So, I post a lot of writer updates on my Facebook page (Kenneth Buff—Author), and one day a friend of mine made a comment that "it seems you jump around a lot from project to project." By this, my friend meant that I don't finish projects. I just get one mostly done, and then move onto something else. Which, I understand when you just glance at it from the outside, that could be what you see. But I can tell you, the process is not fast. At least not when you're having other people give you a high quality edit for free. I could pump them out faster, but I don't want to give up the insights I get from my group (though, now that I'm not working, I do predict my publishing pace will increase).