Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Author at Work

While I was posting almost daily while in Merry Olde England, since I've been home it's been pretty quiet on my end. One big reason: once I returned home I had five and half weeks before my next trip (four weeks now) and during that time I needed to turn the editorial changes requested of me so Madman's Dance will hit the shelves on time. Which meant I needed to be head down, at at the computer, working away like a mad thing.

Which I have been. Once I finally ironed out the last 130+ pages of this incredibly long book (hey, there's a lot to wrap up) I started work on the editorial bits. I sent the first quarter (revised) to the editor today and am now trudging through the second quarter. My editor acts both as a content editor and a copy editor. So she adds punctuation where needed and dings me for things that make no sense. Or if I need more added to a scene. Or a whole new scene, for that matter. Since the series is so blasted complex, I appreciate this input immensely. Her instincts are top notch.

I currently have two other beta readers going through the book. One is my proofreader (Nanette Littlestone) and the other is SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed). Actually, Ally's a neat lady who has the ability to analyze the main plot and all my umpty diddly-odd sub-plots and tell me what works and what's (insert favorite expletive here) up. I'm getting them the book far later than I would prefer, but I will incorporate what they find in the last editorial pass. Their insights are always gold.

So nothing much exciting going on here other than the application of the author's fingers to keyboard as another book comes to fruition. I intend to celebrate when this one's done. Jacynda's story wraps up in MMD. And she deserves a wonderful send off.

No comments: