It’s a Herculean effort to stay in this chair, despite the deadline. The kids are home for the summer, for one. For another, the weather’s beautiful. And lastly, right outside my tree is a mulberry tree loaded with fruit, which means birds, birds, birds. Woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, robins, and lots of others I don’t know. And just now a tiny hummingbird hovered right in front of my window screen and chirped as if to say, “Whaddya doing in there, ya dumb human?” There’s been more birds in my yard this year than ever before, but I’m afraid the neighborhood dog ran off all the bluebirds, because I haven’t seen any since she killed all the fledglings.

So, yeah. It’s difficult to sit in here when all of nature is inviting me outside.

About a week ago I mentioned I would start editing my work in progress, going through it the way I would someone else’s. Well I finished that pass, making notes about what goes where, what needed clarification, missing motivation and leaps of logic.Then yesterday I accepted all the changes, unified the formatting, and moved all the in-doc notes to the margin.

I’ve found it’s really helpful to look at this from an editor’s perspective. It lessens the judgement of the work, clears away all that muddy self-doubt and makes decisions easier.

I have a little more to do in this step, but so far I’m on schedule. Barring mental fatigue I’ll get this formatting/cleaning step done by Feb 1, and the next step is implementing all the changes I’ve noted. This could take a couple of weeks, but I’m pumped to be nearing the end.

It’s starting to look like a real manuscript. Frickin’ awesome.

I think I’ll end up with about four passes, too. In this first pass, I’m treating my manuscript like someone else’s, making notes and tracking changes, going through really quickly. World-building notes are going on a piece of paper, and scene-specific notes are going in the margin of the document.

This quick one, then another to implement notes I made in the first. I think that will be the hardest and take the longest.

On another pass I’ll work on dialogue and tightening up, spell checking and all that good stuff, then I’ll send it to betas. And of course there’ll be a pass after that to implement those changes.

And I plan to do that in a month. I figure if I don’t dally on the easier stages I can devote about 20 days to the second stage, the major re-writing. That’s twice as long as authors for Eternal Press (my old editing job) were given to implement changes…but of course mine needs about 3 times the work, and that doesn’t allow for getting burned out. Or for feeling like your uterus is going to explode, which I have found today can seriously curtail your butt-in-chair time.

On schedule so far. Cross your fingers for me.

Oh, and if anyone knows Spanish, I’ve got some questions for you.

~~~

After finishing the first draft of my WIP, I took a couple of days off to allow a migraine to run its course, as well as to fulfill a critique commitment. Ian’s got a unique spin on the vampire novel and a good story to go along with it. His writing seems so effortless it makes me jealous, but I can’t wait until he snags a publishing contract. This may be the right book at the right time to do just that.

~~~

So now that I’m feeling healthy and free, I’ll start edits on my WIP. I have been using yWriter on this last push to the end, which is based on individual scenes–great for moving big chunks around during organization stages, and then for crafting the scenes themselves. I’ve had trouble with this program in the past because of this chunky quality, but for some reason it was just what I needed for this book.

However, now that I’m finished with the scenes I need to read the book as a whole, and for that I’ve imported it to MS Word, my standard and the industry standard, though that is relaxing. I’ll make a single-shot pass, making notes and correcting typos, re-writing easy stuff as I go through and detailing the hard stuff for the next pass. My biggest trap is indecisiveness, so I’ve vowed to go with my gut on the hard decisions and not over-analyze. Another vow I’ve made is to look at the whole process through a fun lens, rather than fulfilling a duty. Duty crushes my creativity.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

I’m not completely finished yet; I still have to edit the damn thing. I’ve had a few people ask me if I would now do the expected thing and let it sit for a few weeks before tackling the edit. I feel very strongly that this wisdom doesn’t apply here. I have prospects waiting for this manuscript, for one. For another, I took long breaks during the process, and I haven’t read the first half of the novel since I started this last push to the end. I’m motivated and excited; I know what it’s like to not be those things and if they leave again I’ll take a break, but I don’t want to waste them while they’re here.

So I have a long way to go. I still have to make some hard decisions, and I’m still not entirely confident in my abilities. However, the editing has always been easier for me than the actual writing. And I’ll have it done by the end of February, this I vow.

I can’t freakin’ believe it.

No, both of the ones I worked on are erotica short stories, and I’ve just seen the covers for the first time. They are fantastic! Jezebel’s Article is a vampire fantasy, and Ink Me is set in a tattoo shop. I edited these at the same time, switching off (hm, reminds me of Jezebel’s Article…) and though the protagonists have similar voices, the stories are very different. If you’re into such literature, go check ‘em out!

This fragrance thing is actually getting more manageable. I think I’m healing, as the reactions for the past several months haven’t been as strong. Trips to the store are less taxing. I can think while at a school function. It’s tempting to start letting my guard down, but I know this is a slow process. I have to let my body heal.

Finally seeing the end of this editing project. It’s the first novel I’ve edited, been editing shorts, so it seemed to go forever. I’m at the point now where I know what it’s like to be an editor, and I need to balance it against my own writing. Do I like editing enough to put my book on hold for three weeks? Not sure about that. I’d planned to get BVA done by Christmas, something I could have done if my editing assignment had been another short. I had no idea how much time a novel would take.

Gotta get bananas for Maggie’s class . Thanks for everybody’s good wishes about her arm, it’s not bothering her too much, with the brace.

So…that’s me today. What’s up with you?

First of all, it’s not like a critique. In a critique you can say things like, “I can’t follow the action in this scene,” and then leave it up to the author to figure out why. That’s perfectly acceptable, because as the critic you’re doing the author a favor, and they’ll take what you have to offer. As an editor, I have to figure out exactly what confuses me about the action, and then say that. Saying it is the hard part. If I do my job right, the solution will be obvious to the author, even if I haven’t suggested a solution. Which ties in with my next point.

Editing is a balance of telling the author what to do and letting her decide how to do it. Except in the case of punctuation, where there is a right way and a wrong way, but even then if she feels strongly about leaving out a specific comma, that’s ultimately her decision. I have to be very careful about rewriting anything. If I can’t move around phrases she’s already used to fix it, I leave a suggested fix in a comment, then she can either take my advice as is, change it another way, or tell me to take a flying leap. Although the last one on that list might be counter-productive, since I’m an impartial observer (or at least as impartial as anyone can be), and I’m only here to make her look better. Which leads to…

The editor is there to correct mistakes, no doubt. But among some authors there’s this attitude of, “So I don’t know how to punctuate a sentence correctly, that’s what editors are for.” Let me take a moment to point out I’ve not yet edited an author with this attitude, but I’ve seen it around in the blogosphere. But let me tell you something, dear authors, this attitude is stupid. STUPID. If my harsh words pull one author away from this abyss, they will be worth it. Not only is it good to know your craft inside and out for your craft’s sake, but there’s a practical purpose for knowing the nuts and bolts, and then putting them into practice BEFORE sending it to your editor.

If I have your manuscript for 20 days, and I spend the full 20 helping you polish your words, you are going to have one tight, well-written book. A tight, well-written book will increase your reputation, generate better word-of-mouth, ergo selling more books and creating more fans. However, if I have to spend seven of those days correcting hundreds or even thousands of typos which could easily have been found before the ms came to me, then you are getting only 13 days of word polishing. We might only have time for plot and eliminating confusion, and very little time for word choices and flow.

So those are the observations I have so far. I’m sure I’ll have more as I go along, and maybe even change my mind about some of those up there. (Except for the last one. Since I basically called everyone who doesn’t agree with me an idiot I’ll have to stick by it. It’s true anyway.) I’m getting the education of a lifetime, being on this side of things.

My dreams the past few days have included a lot of elements from this game I’m playing–Metroid Prime. Super Metroid was my favorite a long, long time ago, back before I had babies and still had time to play video games. I love how it has action, but it’s not all action, you also have to figure out puzzles with clues from made-up lore in the ruins of a civilization. Right up my alley. In Super Metroid all those years ago, I remember playing the whole game with this character in a space suit, then after I won, Samus took off the helmet and…Samus was a girl. What? A girl? AWESOME! That’s right, girls play games, too. Girls like to kick butt. But at the time it really shook things up. Now, of course, it’s no secret Samus is a girl. The game is awesome, even if Samus were a boy, but it’s even awesomer to have a girl character to identify with. It makes me think I could walk through lava if I only had Varia suit. I could blast strange creatures on another planet, if I just had an arm cannon.

I’m actually playing the game too much. My eyes can’t take that 1st person, 3D view for very long. Especially since most of my work is done on computer, so there’s another 8 hours a day of looking at a screen. When I first took this editing job, I wasn’t sure how it would affect my own writing. I figured it would be a good distraction, as well as teaching me more about the business side of publishing. I worried that I might edit instead of writing my own stuff, but then I found it beneficial to have some other things to rotate through. But true to form, I’ve let the editing completely take over my own writing, and my good-eye time. I’m a serial obsesser, but I am learning how to calm the obsession. The editing job has been good for me.

Yesterday was the Little Bubba’s birthday, so we had the family over for a party. It rained literally all weekend, in fact is still raining, but it didn’t affect the party at all. One nice surprise was my step-son coming for the party. His birthday was on Saturday (20 years old, yikes!), but he rarely visits even for birthdays, so it was nice having him. I hope he starts visiting more often.

I didn’t get much of my own writing done because of the migraine. I used the lucid times to get some editing done for the Eternal Press stories. I don’t know if I’m very good at juggling two stories at once, but I can already tell it’s going to be a good lesson. It’s so rewarding to get the manuscript back from the author after the first round of edits, the hardest part. Seeing it so much cleaner than it was when we started is awesome.

Something else I’ve been thinking about is this uproar over the presidential address to the schools. I never get political on here, mostly because I’m on the fence about all the issues and I know my limitations. I affiliate with no party. But why is everyone being so unreasonable about this? I understand how a parent might worry a politician might try to indoctrinate the young’uns to his ideas, and how that parent might wish to look over the speech before it is delivered. The way some folks have reacted to the very idea of that speech, text unseen, is … I’m just flabbergasted. He won’t have hypnotic lasers beaming directly into our children’s brains. It’s, what–20 minutes out of their day? When the kids come home from school, I’ll ask them if they saw the speech, and what they thought of it, and address any questions they have–if they’re even showing it at our school, I haven’t asked. What happened to calm reason? Waiting to find out the facts before freaking? Or has that always been a quality in the minority?

I invite your comments and discussion on this issue, ‘cuz I know you will. All I ask, since I have readers on both sides of the fence, is to keep the snark to a minimum. Snark reflects worse on the snarker than the snarkee, and solves nothing. Calm reason, please.