Where to Begin?

As it turns out, starting a journey is much easier said than done.

So I've found the manuscript - all 437 typed pages waiting for me to go through and fill in missing thoughts and feelings. I swear, I think that staring at a manuscript that was started years ago just might be harder than staring at a blank page waiting to be started.

437 pages... So, I figured the best starting point would be to back track a little bit. Where did I leave off? What part of the process had I already started? And I found a critique that I had paid for back in 2008.

Of course, the critique isn't great. I mean, the editor who critiqued my manuscript was very nice, but when I asked another editor to help me go through to make the suggested changes I was informed that the first critique was likely a cookie-cutter critique... A form letter that was filled out without actually going through and / or reading anything. But, still, I thought that this would serve as a good starting point for now.

The first thing noted on this critique was the formatting... Apparently I had not formatted the manuscript properly. I used the default formatting for Microsoft Word, changing only the line spacing to be double spaced. Well, hey, I'm not an author (yet!) right? So how exactly does formatting a manuscript differ from normal formatting a paper? I turned to the Internet to find my answers and found this amazing article that I am now using to go through and reformat my entire manuscript so that it would be in compliance with the standard:

Kleine Editorial Services

So, while my margins and spacing are good, my header, chapter headings, and sub-headings need work. Guess I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the night!