Reading the Manuscript

I took the plunge, and began reading the latest draft of my book.  It has been a while, and I've been daunted by the prospect, but I knew that once I began reading,  I had to plough on.

I'm reading through as quickly as I can, this time, just making a few notes as I go, and trying not to get bogged down in detail.  At first I was stealing moments to read, but it wasn't easy; I had to balance the manuscript on my lap, or a table, and wait for the breeze or passing child to create an avalanche of papers.      Lifting it felt like a trip to the gym.  But I was enjoying it.  One night I stayed up till midnight, reading (though I must confess that I think I fell asleep for a little while in them middle).

Then I had a moment of inspiration, that would have occurred to someone else much sooner, no doubt.  I decided to read it on my Kindle. It seemed a simple solution at first, but our main computer is a Mac, and when I realised that the Kindle couldn't read the novel in its usual format, I couldn't find a way to convert it.

Luckily, I have a laptop too, and was able to use Mobipocket Creator on that to create a document that my Kindle could read.  It's so much easier to read my manuscript on the go now - it's been to a hospital appointment, and to the local soft-play centre this afternoon, too.  I love the feeling that it's just like a 'real' book, already, and I love being able to make notes on the Kindle too.  However,  I have a touch-screen Kindle, and I'm not having as much fun when I try to highlight a word or passage and the page flips over. It took me five attempts to 'catch' one phrase this afternoon. In the end, I resorted to making the font larger, which I then disliked reading.  Oh, well.

The other thing about my Kindle is, I know I am officially 65% of the way through...