As some of you know, I finally, finally, after nearly sixteen years of not quite continuous work, ordered the proof copy for my book last week. There then ensued some serious nail biting, pacing and other such symptoms of worry as I calculated just how long it could take for the proof copy to arrive.
I calculated that, if both the printing and the posting to the maximum amount of time, then it would not arrive until the twentieth of April as it is not a go idea to count the weekends in such things. As it is my fingernails can begin to regrow, the carpet be replaced and the cold sweats be washed off as the proof arrived on Thursday! Whoop!
My apologise for not sharing this brilliant news with you, as I really should have done, but Thursday and Friday didn't even give me much time to celebrate as no sooner had the proof copy hit my hands than my editor whisked it away to start the finally double... triple... quadruple... check.
Almost immediately I was having feed back - the chapter headings are too low, the margins need to be bigger, the header needs to be higher up and 'the end' needs to be taken out, it makes it sound childish.
It was a case of sigh, roll eyes and begin on the fiddle work. Still that is why author's, particularly self publishing authors, need their editor. They are the first member of the public that gets to see you book and if they rip it to pieces then you know that your readership is going to do exactly the same. Don't fool yourself into thinking 'I love it and therefore other people will too'. You have to bare in mind that the story has been living in your head, possibly for years. In that time you have become so well acquainted with the characters and the landscape, the social structures and even the patterns of speech that you sometimes forget to share them with your reader without even realising that you are doing so. So git your teeth and bare with the pain when your editor turns round and says 'Hang on a minute how does that work?'
However, I would say that the better editor is the sort that is willing to brainstorm a few ideas around with you to improve your book, not just rip your story a new one and leave you feeling like you've just watched your baby die. It is a tricky balancing act between overcritical and not critical enough.
Any way, I have to be going because in between doing the final polish up of 'The Return of a Nagus', I am writing the first draft of the four book, when we are not busy editing the second one. We are on to the third read through of the first chapter of the second book and we are still picking up things that have to be changed and re sculpted... sanded back... cut out... filled over... repainted... polished up....
If you hear any infuriated screaming in the next few days, it is probably me and it means that we have reached the tenth read through and it is still not perfect.
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