Thank you for being a part of phase 1!

I am so honored and incredibly thankful to have you on board. Thank you for offering your time!

​Let's get straight to it, shall we?

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How this works:

My current plan is to have all the people involved in phase one collaboratively editing, commenting, and brainstorming in Google Drive.

LINK TO PHASE ONE EDITING ON GOOGLE DRIVE.
​You will have to sign in to your google account and request access to view the document. I will approve you as soon as possible! If for some reason you have trouble, send me an email at [email protected] and I'll send you an invite link.

This is unlike anything else that I've done before, but I'd like to think that when somebody points out an issue, others can help offer suggestions as to how to fix or improve the issue! Having Phase 1 be collaborative helps crowdsource good ideas in one place, instead of me receiving a different document with different suggestions from everyone involved in phase one. It let's a larger amount of people pick what's best for the story--a sort of "choose your own adventure" in that sense!

The settings are currently such that you can only comment. And by all means, please comment! There's no such thing as an excessive amount of comments. Whether pointing out issues, or scenes you like, let me know! And communicate with your fellow Phase 1 folks about what's good, bad, what needs fixing how, and so on! I'm very excited to see how the collaborative nature of this editing process plays out.

If you would strongly prefer to do content editing on your own, you should be able to download a copy from Google Docs. Otherwise, send me an email and I'll get you a separate .docx copy to mark up and return to me.

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Timeline

I really don't want to put any of you on any kind of deadline, because you're so generously offering your time to this project. That said... the sooner the better! If the majority of suggestions and comments could be in by December 12, that would be lovely! The book is just under 50,000 words / 200 pages, so it's really a fairly quick read. If you don't get around to it before then, I'd still appreciate your added thoughts, but again... the sooner the better.

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Things to look for:

Phase 1 is all about content editing. I have a complete draft that stands on its own, but there are a few things in particular that I'd love feedback on/help improving. Don't limit yourself to things on this list, however--anything that can be improved, let me know!

• Character development. (Especially in the first half of the book.)
• Depression. This is heavy stuff, I want to portray it and the start of recovery from it accurately and without romanticizing it.
• The Math "Formula." Devin uses the idea of mathematical limits--functions growing infinitely closer to a number without ever reaching it--as a metaphor for personal improvement/achieving close to perfection. In theory, this formula plus everything that goes wrong on the road trip are what sets Devin over the edge.
  • Fitting to a Standard - this is an idea that reoccurs throughout the book, I really want to show how Devin struggles to match where he thinks he should be on this graph.
• Realism. I don't think much in the story frays from normal behavior, but if you spot something that doesn't make sense, doesn't fit a character, or doesn't seem like it could happen in real life... definitely flag it!
  • Timelines - months and passing days make sense
• A good title! There's a part of the end survey that includes a spot for title ideas you have, but leaving them in comments in the doc is perfectly fine, too!