I’ve had the pleasure of three days of intensive master classes with HARDCOPY professional development program and I have to say that despite my exhaustion, I loved every second of it.

I had thought my manuscript (MS) was as polished as I could make it, that is, until about 30 minutes into the first day! Then I realised that I needed to ensure the narrator was consistent, write out 2 (maybe 3) characters from the MS as they were residual parts from previous drafts, work on the beginning (again), work on the ending (again), copy-edit the whole piece and make changes according to the suggestions made during critiquing.

But for someone who was honestly sick of reading the same book over and over, I am so excited to be working on it again. I guess it’s all about focus. HARDCOPY taught us to analyse our work to figure out WHAT needed to be changed. Now, rather than just reading through and thinking that every word is a masterpiece, which we all secretly hope it is, I know what to look out for and how to change it for the better.

I cannot wait for the next seminars to be held in September. Hopefully by then, my MS actually will be as polished as I can make it (yeah right)!