I'm back to reading through "The Tiger's Cub". Count along with me to see how many times it's been edited versus the writing time, and come to your own conclusion as to whether or not I'm a little obsessive about this.....
First, around the middle of the summer of 2011, a handsome young character introduced himself to me in a dream sequence. I kept trying to stifle him so that I could continue working on another piece in which the writing was happening really slowly, but he was persistent. I wrote the introduction and first two chapters in late 2011/early 2012. I did an edit, copied it onto my web site and formatted it properly.
Second came the month this past spring when I made the mistake of letting Chase take over. The rest of his story took 25 days to write, leaving me with bruises on my wrists from the edge of my laptop before he released me and said the story was done. As soon as I finished the writing, I ran the spellcheck/grammar check program, corrected the issues (with the exception of the corrections to the spoken words, some of which are meant to impart the dialect of the area), and then did a quick edit to make sure there weren't any obvious holes in the story.
Next, I checked the requested submission format, reformatted the story to specs, and read through again, correcting things that were ALL IN CAPS to italics or underline if the word needed to be specially stressed. I did another edit to make sure that I didn't miss anything in terms of the special format requests from the publisher.
The story went out to the publisher, got edited there and formatted into the galley that goes to the printing press, and then got returned to me for another edit and my approval of the cover and typeset used.
Five times the charm? I just got the galley proofs back with the corrections made, and am doing another edit to make sure all is perfect before it goes to print. This was about the time that I shirked my duty on the first book and ended up with an error that bugs the living heck out of my little OCD demon.
Of course, when I get my advanced copy, I'm also going to edit before I place an order for copies to use for book signings and, if anything jumps out at me, I'll still have one last chance for a correction before it goes into production....
So what do you think? Am I a little obsessive or not?
(and I apologize for not doing the advertising post. It's next....)
Addendum: After sending in the corrections to the latest galley proof (a shrinking number of corrections each time, mostly things like spacing in prior corrections this time), my publisher's response was "I'll try to get the corrected proof back to you by the end of the week" - which means one more reading (#6) before I give the "all clear to print".
ReplyDeleteI SERIOUSLY hope that I'll eventually be able to pay someone to do this for me for at least a few of the edits, as 6 times of reading the same book - most of those just since April - is a little insane.....
from reading this, it seems like most of your edits are in the form of spelling grammar type stuff rather than reworking the actual story. the first novel i wrote i sent to my grandmother who sent an entire notebook (this is not an exaggeration) of typo-like corrections that needed to be made. (to be fair, i wrote it as part of nanowrimo which is why there were so many mistakes.) my sister is also very good at finding that kind of stuff so i send pieces to her. i face most of my editing problems with reworking the story. it might just be a lack of confidence, but i feel like i'm always missing something that would make the story good. so i add characters and side plots and change major plot points, and yet i am never satisfied. *sigh*
ReplyDeletehopefully this last reading reveals that no more edits are needed.
Thank you for the good wishes, Sarah - and yes, you're right about the edits mostly being grammar/spelling related after the first read through. If I've come up with the right way of describing the action that my characters are showing me, there are very seldom any re-writes. However, if it's putting me to sleep to read it through....
ReplyDeleteI have an historical romance that has that "snoring by the end of the first chapter" problem, so it's currently in the drawer while I work on another piece with fewer problems. Usually, if I force them to wait, the characters decide what needs to go while I'm otherwise occupied....*grin*
Good luck with your work! I hope to see you on Amazon soon!