First Round of Edits are Finished.

I finished the 150 pages of edit suggestions from editor #1. I agreed with about 99% of them. Amazing what I missed. I thought I knew every word of that manuscript. I left out words, misspelled words, misused words and had some jumbled sentences that she helped me clarify. On top of her suggestions, I had some really great and brutally honest feedback from a respected professor and author and I took his advice as well and reworked the beginning and ending. I cut seven pages from the ending. There is something really liberating about highlighting entire pages and hitting delete. The first draft of Native Moments was over 100,000 words. It’s currently at just over 87,000. I emailed the working file back today and it will go through another round of edits from a different editor. I have a much higher respect for editors now than I did just two weeks ago. Editing is an entirely different skill set than reading and writing and it is a skill that I will only get better at with the opportunity to work with the people at Waldorf Publishing.

Native Moments is still doing well in the Amazon “new releases” category for surfing. Currently at #4. If you have traveled to Costa Rica, or plan to, this will be a book to take along with you. It’s set in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, more specifically Tamarindo. But the Tamarindo just before becoming the major tourist area it is today. It is the Tamarindo of seventeen years ago: Dirt roads, $1.50 camping, $1 beers, $3 whole Red Snapper dinners. Some familiar places are used fictionally as well, places that still stand today like Pasatiempo and El Pescador and the discoteca. Other settings include Playa Grande, Playa Langosta, Playa Negra and the legendary Witch’s Rock. The characters also visit Santa Teresa and the waterfalls of Montezuma, but again back in a different time before these towns were really established. They were on the verge then. Everyone knew it was coming. The people who were there even then would say, “You should’ve seen it yesterday.”

I plan on visiting next year with a back pack of books and hit up surf shops and book stores selling my wares. I have a buddy living in Nosara who has told me that Nosara still has that pre-developed primitive feel like Tamarindo did years ago. I’m excited to go back.

If you haven’t preordered yet you can do so here: