Tonight marks the next milestone for T3 - the third Troubleshooter installment, called "Troubleseeker". When I write or edit, I mark each open issue with an "xxx". This marks everything from missing descriptions ("xxx What does Irene wear?"), clarifications ("xxx MI5 or MI6?"), or plot-points to be picked up ("xxx add earlier scene about threat"). Especially in first drafts I might dispense "xxx" remarks by the dozen whenever I am too lazy or too immersed in my writing.

During editing passes one and two, most "xxx" items get taken care of. But at the end of edit pass two there will always be twenty to thirty more persistent items left over. Because they require a bit of deeper research which I avoided to do during concentrated writing or editing. E.g. "xxx what model is the helicopter?" requires a check into what helicopter types are used by the Royal Air Force to transport people from A to B.. Or because the issues require another dive into creativity because the story structure is weak or complete new scenes are needed.

In the most cases, I simply delete the xxx comment after I am done, as it makes no sense to keep them. But in other situations I keep them. I might pose a question in my remarks "xxx Shouldn't Tom discover the identity of the baby instead of Burton?". To answer, I leave the comment, just re-labelled as "yyy" or "nnn" which stands for Yes or No.

But now it is done. The last "xxx" has been eradicated from the Troubleseeker manuscript! Now it is back to edit pass three. By end of August I should be able to pass it over to the editing service for the language, grammar and typo check.

PS: in case you are wondering: I am working on a German Mac. German lesson of the day: "Suchergebnis" = "Search Result"