I made some super great cookies the other day as I work toward finishing my WIP (novel number 2!)

An in depth look into my editing process and why it may be perfect (or a nightmare) for others.

As june starts to come to a close, I have been working harder to get my never ending to-do list finished.

Gilmore Girls Coffee Cake Cookies

First, I want to share these Gilmore Girls Coffee Cake Cookies I made!

I was perusing videos on Facebook where 50% of them are about dogs and 50% are recipes, and I usually end up just using Messenger as a recipe box. I send all videos of food I want to try to cook to my boyfriend and refer to them later.

Baking is something I’m naturally good at, but cooking isn’t necessarily something I *love* (But we all need to eat!)

This recipe is available through the palatable life blog and was super easy!

There are three different things you need to make for this recipe: dough, streusel, and icing.

CINNAMON DOUGH

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 2 1/2 cups flour

STREUSEL

• 1/4 cup butter, softened

• 1/4 cup brown sugar

• 1/3 – 1/2 cup flour

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• pinch of salt

ICING

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

• 1 tbsp milk

• splash of vanilla

Instructions (directly from the palatable life):

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. To make the dough, combine the butter, oil and brown sugar. Mix for a couple minutes until it is smooth. The mixture should be lighter in color and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix again. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until just combined.

2. To make the streusel, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a spoon or your hand. Start with 1/3 cup of flour. The mixture should stick together, but should also crumble when you run it through your fingers. If it isn't crumbling, add 1 tbsp additions of flour until it crumbles.

3. Using a large cookie scoop, scoop a ball of dough onto a lined baking sheet. Using the back of your cookie scoop or your fingers, make an indent on the top of the dough. Sprinkle a couple tablespoons of the streusel on the top of the cookie, into the indent.

4. Bake the cookies at 350 for 10-12 minutes. While they are baking, make the icing. Combine the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk until it's smooth and runny. Once the cookies have cooled slightly, drizzle on lots of icing! Enjoy!

How mine turned out:

While they were very good, they were also super filling. The cookies were huge and the recipe gave me enough for 12 big cookies. I think I needed to add more flour to my streusel, but it still turned out great. The icing needed a little extra milk for me compared to the recipe only because it came out so thick at first. I would absolutely make these again and I can’t wait to try other recipes from this blog!

Later today I plan to make some breaded zucchini fries from a video I found on Instagram and can’t wait to document that!

Being productive between jobs

Pretty soon here we’re going to have to move so I’ve been packing up my closet, which was the longest part of my unpacking when we moved into the apartment. I used the Lowe’s vacuum seal bags and packed up all of my winter clothes, jackets, and other clothing I don’t need between now and when we move. I’m going to Lowe’s today to purchase a bunch of boxes and tape to better pack all of our Christmas and holiday stuff along with our office and my books.

I try hard to be proactive and get things done before it’s too late and becomes an issue. This means the more packed up I am ahead of moving, the better I’ll feel about it. I even got our storage unit already! I’m also house sitting for someone next week and am hoping to get more done then in the content/work world. I also want to get as much done as I can before I start working, because I won’t get another chance like this. Being unemployed stinks, but it’s also a blessing in a lot of ways.

I get to spend tons of time with the Doodles too, and I can’t wait to create some fine tuned Doodle content in the fall!

Finally: editing of my latest WIP and what my process is (aka the reason most people subscribe to me on here)

It’s no secret I’ve been working on my latest novel Beverly at the Buffet (working title I’m definitely changing but am not ready to release).

With 12,775 Days I learned a lot of lessons, especially as a self published author. Even with beta readers, editors, and myself, there is likely going to me a typo or two that slips through the cracks. I’m not perfect, and I don’t claim to be. I was able to edit a lot of these and upload a corrected manuscript within the first week of publishing, but some people get really mad about these things and the reality is, that’s their perogative. If they feel it ruined their reading experience then there’s nothing I can really do about that except do better next time. (This is a topic for another post and with the #BookTok drama going on, now that readers and authors are much more connected in the industry, I will definitely be elaborating on that).

Side Note: You as an author don’t get to be mad about someone giving you a negative or mediocre review. Sure, there are outlying situations like a hater from high school, but in the end you really can’t do anything about that. You are an author, you chose to create a novel to hand over to the public. Just because you worked tirelessly on it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to praise. Your work will speak for itself. If someone’s giving you a negative review just because they don’t like you, the positive reviews will outweigh the negative from those who don’t have that goal in mind. You’re the author, not the reader. Once it’s in the reader’s hands, it’s up to them to decide.

Back to my editing process

The way I do it is messy, confusing, and all over the place.

I start a book with my handy chart:

Then I move onto the grid:

Then I write.

I write from the beginning to about the end of the rising action or climax, when the real meat and potatoes of the plot are “done.”

Then I stop. Crazy right? I stop at the climax (or just before) and do not continue onto the falling action just yet.

I go back to the beginning and I reread everything, and edit as I go. This helps not only refresh my memory on descriptions I’ve used (because I’m awful at taking these down in notes as I go) but exactly how things played out up to the point of the climax. I also keep in mind where my word count is at. My goal for Bevery at the Buffet is 70,000, but I want each word to be necessary. A book full of fluff is useless. Usually going back and editing, building out, and lengthening so it makes more sense, really helps me to better understand my characters and their world. I want to show the reader things, not just tell them, and this process helps me to better do that. Typically doing this can add anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 words onto my novel.

From there I feel like the falling action and resolution are much easier to reach. It’s almost like a worked so hard to climb this really tall mountain and after getting all that work done, the downhill climb is so much easier to accomplish.

Then it’s off to my dad in an email because he’s the first person who gets to see my work always!

Also, should I get this book? (LOL)