Editing, Editing, Editing
There is a temporary hiatus on work on The Desert Spear these days, as I am once again editing The Painted Man. As I think I mentioned in my last post, I received line edits from both my US and UK editors on the same day, and of course, their edits are completely different. Somehow, I need to turn these two disparate edits into one unified manuscript, as I don’t want significant differences in the book between markets. I also don’t want to set a bad precedent of turning in 2 versions of each book I write.
Fortunately, both editors were kind enough to make all their edits electronically, so I can do cheats like comparing documents and cut/paste, rather than trying to decipher 1100+ pages of handwritten marks.
This was the first real editing round for the UK, as they came to the gate a little later, so I wanted to make sure they felt like they were being listened to. Frankly, a lot of their suggestions are great, because they are only minor tweaks that have significant ripple effects in strengthening the story.
I have to say, I am very lucky to be working with people who really seem to genuinely love the book and who commit themselves to understanding the world and the story while making their comments. It’s odd to be having in-depth conversations about what have up until now essentially been my imaginary friends. Of course, like any friends, I am very protective of them, so there have been a few times when I argue against edits, but that’s part of the process.
On Monday night, I handed in the version to Voyager to be typeset into uncorrected advance proofs for distribution to booksellers, reviewers, and the like, while I pound away at the final draft. It will probably take another week for me to finish this round, and then (hopefully) the only thing left will be checking the copyeditor’s changes for each market.
Lots of other exciting news on the publishing front, but I’m waiting for it to solidify a bit before getting into it.
Just remember, when you go to the UK you’ll need to bring back Lion bars, HobNobs and Crunchie bars. Squirmy will need his/her first taste of Brit sweets!
Don’t forget hard cider!
Let us not forget the elusive Boost Bar, most delicious of all chocolate bars, which is pretty much impossible to find in the US, even here in NYC, where you can get just about anything.