My copyedits came in yesterday.
Along with a house style guide, a legend of obscure short-hand symbols, and a magical green pencil, all provided by my awesome editor, Danielle.
It’s a tad intimidating, I’ll admit. In between my gilded words are copious amounts of colored notes – Danielle’s line edits in grey, the copy-editor’s in red, Danielle’s rebuttal to some of those red marks…in green.
It’s almost like Christmas came and barfed all over my book.
I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course. It can be hard to see your words and sentences shredded – but honestly, the editors aren’t changing my writing voice, so much as refining it and making it stronger. In the writing world, less really is more – and prose often needs snipping to keep it crisp and fresh.
So now I’ve got two weeks to go through all these little changes and edits. It’s my last chance to add a few sentences (or take a few out), and to approve or dispute any changes/assumptions made by the copy-editor, as well as maybe clarify some of the points made.
Of course, I’ve got approximately two weeks to get this done, interrupted by going to Nationals next week, so looks like I’ll be hauling the ms with me on the plane (or at least half of it.)
Wish me luck!
