Revisions Revisted

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We return you to your regularly scheduled Blog Post

I hope everyone enjoyed having that extra day in February yesterday. But now it's March, and we're back in normal calendar territory.

Since I've been eyeball deep in edits for SAVING SCOTT this week, I thought I'd "borrow" some bits and pieces from older posts I've done on edits and revisions.

The writing process goes through countless phases. There's the initial writing—whether you're plotting things out in advance, flying by the seat of your pants into the mist, or a combination. Eventually, you'll get to "The End."

You've edited, polished, rewritten, repolished. You've checked for all those pesky weak verbs, overused words. You've passed it by your critique groups, your first reader, and asked your dog what he thinks.

At some point, your words are going to need professional eyes. Whether it's an agent trying to get your work sold, the editor your publisher assigns, or a freelance editor you hire yourself, you need someone who's not blinded by being too close to the work.

So, you ship it off, and it comes back dripping red ink. What next?

Editing and Sewing Machines

What I'm reading: Blind Faith, by CJ Lyons

There are those who write via a "discovery draft" racing to get from page one to 'the end' and then going back and revising. And revising. And revising. This is the approach of NaNoWriMo--write it all; no edits. That's a process I've never been able to embrace, so I was heartened once when I attended a workshop given by Linda Howard. She said she writes, then backs up and fixes, then moves forward, then backs up and fixes some more. She likened her process to using a zig-zag sewing machine. When she finished, she said, the manuscript was ready to send to her editor.

Her method is close to the way I write. I edit as I go. (Heck, I plot as I go, too!)  Here's an example of my process from my current WIP, another of my Pine Hills Police series.

Overall, my heroine's goal was to open her own bakery, so, of course, my goal was to keep that from happening—or at least, to delay it.

Since I prefer to escalate the conflict rather than throw the reader into a full-blown crisis on page one, I began with simple accidents and setbacks as her contractor and crew (which she refers to as the Klutz Brigade) worked to get her bakery finished so she could open on time.

But that's not really enough of a conflict to carry the entire book. Since the book is a romantic suspense, and the hero is a former homicide detective, I threw in a dead body.

Another Day, Another Editor

What I'm reading: Still Life With Murder, by P. B. Ryan

If you haven't checked out WHEN DANGER CALLS as the Book of the Day featured at Ereader News Today, take a minute to pop over.

And thanks for all your comments and suggestions yesterday. I'll send a list to the editor, and will update you on our final answer.

Speaking of editors, I seem to be in editing mode these days. Just as I'm finishing up with edits on my short story, I get the copy edits for my next Blackthorne, Inc. story, ROOTED IN DANGER, which is due to be released next April. (Note: reminder to those who have been following my discussion of editorial preferences with my police procedural short story, this post is about a different story, a different publisher, and a different editor.)

I've already worked with the first round edits, where my editor and I worked with the manuscript I'd submitted to Five Star. We worked together to turn in the best possible product. But from there, it goes to their copy editing department, and they go over it carefully. Despite the efforts made to give them something perfect, they're probably going to find things that need attention.

Much as I dislike working with Track Changes, these edits come back in a pdf document, so you can't really make changes. Anything the editor changed will show up very much like it does in Track Changes, but there's no "accept/reject" option. Instead, you create a new document in Word, noting page numbers and paragraphs, and noting anything you disagree with. For the most part, changes are things to be sure the manuscript conforms to house style, and catching inconsistencies. For example, the heroine's family business is Epicurean Unlimited. However, in two places, I'd written Epicurean, Unlimited. Neither the first round editor nor I noticed it, but copy editors are alert to things like this.

Edits, Edits, Edits

What I'm reading: The Sex Club by L.J. Sellers (and despite the title, it's a mystery, not erotica, or even a romance); Detachment Fault, by Susan Cummins Miller.

Another reminder – please check the Contest and Deals & Steals tabs above. There are some great bargains (and on a lot more than just my books).

This Just In: An article I wrote about characters is featured at the Guide To Literary Agents Blog. Please pop over. Please? And spread the word.

I've been dealing with edits for several projects lately, and they've all been different. I've got edits from a publisher, edits I'm doing myself, and edits from a professional editor I've hired. I thought I'd share.

First are the long-awaited edits for one of my mystery short stories which will be part of an anthology. This is one of two connected stories, but I've only received edits on the first of them.

These edits come from the publisher. I get a marked up document (using the dreaded "Track Changes"). Her instructions say to accept any changes I agree with, and leave Track Changes on for anything I add or change myself.

Upon opening the document, I discovered that most of her edits are changes in speaker tags. I figure it's easy enough to accept them, because if she can follow who's speaking without those particular tags, other readers shouldn't have any trouble.

(Hint, if you're not familiar with Track Changes: every time someone touches the document, it'll show up in the margin as an insertion or deletion. This means if someone changes "the" to "a", you have to approve the deletion of "the" AND the insertion of "a". This can be a royal pain.



However, if you highlight the section with the changes, and look at the "reviewing" toolbar, there's an icon that allows you to accept all the changes (both insertions and deletions) for the highlighted section. There's one that lets you accept them for the entire document, but I wouldn't want to do that at this stage of editing.




The editor also has comments in the margins, and a few "vague" suggestions, such as, "if you want to expand this section, we're OK on word count." Those are up to me to deal with as I see fit.

Editing: The Next Step

Yesterday I mentioned printing out your document in two columns, using a font different from the one you use to write your manuscript. The advantages: Your eye sees things differently. First, the line breaks will come at different places. This means the words line up differently, and things you haven't noticed will jump out at you. Also, the narrower columns mean your eye can take in a whole "line" much more easily.

I also said I prefer to print it out single-spaced, and I use an 11 point font which is still easy to read, but saves paper. The idea on this read is to read the manuscript like a book. I'm reading for story. Here, I'll try to read in larger chunks. I keep my red pen handy, and a stack of Post-Its.

(Confession – I started this manuscript while we were in the process of moving, and didn't use my tracking board. So I was actually going back and doing a lot of what I SHOULD have done as I was writing – but either way, it gets the job done.)

And, because I hadn't used my tracking board, I read each scene and then summarized it on a Post-It. One thing I do leave in when I print the manuscript is the page break between chapters. This gives me room for my Post-Its and also any other notes I think will be helpful. I also decided that I'd never write another manuscript without my tracking system. Saves a lot of effort in the read-through.(And if you click to enlarge the images, you'll know why I don't write longhand!)

Murdering Those Darlings

(Shameless plug: What's in a Name? is still available for 99 cents. Details in the sidebar) And I'll announce the winner of yesterday's blog contest tomorrow, so there's still time to leave a comment and get entered in the drawing.

Continuity in a book is a challenge. Continuity over a series is a bigger challenge. And when we forget, it can lead to facing reality. Our words aren't precious.

One of my crit partners questioned a passage in a chapter, wondering if the child might be wondering about an adult conversation. Although the fix was simple—make sure I clarified that the child, Will, wasn't in that scene (which, I think my CP simply missed), as I re-read the passage I realized I'd created a major blunder.

This manuscript deals with characters who have appeared in two other books—three if I get my next one published, but that's another issue. And because it's been a very long time since I looked at the earlier book, I'd totally forgotten that the child had already met this "new" character who was being introduced to him as a total stranger.

Okay, on the optimistic hope that 1) this book gets published; 2) someone who reads it has actually read the others; and 3) remembers that Will and Dalton have appeared on the page together in the earlier book, I had to deal with it.

Editing? Get Out of the Box

What I'm reading: Ashton's Secret, by Liana Laverentz

First things first – I've blogged about authors supporting each other before, and today I've got two examples.
Without any solicitations on my part, this blog was discovered by Patricia Marie Warren, who has a blog called "Typing One Handed." She's featuring Terry's place as her blog of the week. I hope you'll drop by – this isn't an interview, book promotion, or the like. It's simply a review of what she likes about my blog. Take a moment to check her out … and, of course, leaving a comment would be wonderful.

Second, I was approached to participate in an on-line book launch for author Carolyn Schriber. She's writing an historical novel, something that's way outside my writing comfort zone, and approached authors to contribute articles on the craft of writing, which is well within my zone. She decided she liked it enough to include me in her launch party, so I'll be fielding questions and discussions over there from 1-9 PM, my (mountain) time. I'm in the Interview Room. She's got all sorts of things going on -- games, food, workshops. It should be interesting, and I'd love some company.

I hope you'll visit both sites, and pass the word.

And as long as you're popping around, here's another review for Nowhere To Hide.

As for my "real" life:

If It Ain't Broke...

What I'm reading: The Long Quiche Goodbye by Avery Aames.

If you haven't checked in over the weekend, you might not have seen my new blog design yet. I'm going to call it a work in progress, because I haven't figured out how to interpret the "simple" directions provided by Blogger. It's been trial and error more than anything else. My knowledge of HTML consists of being able to put words in italics, bold, or underline them. And I know how to link text to a web URL. That's about it. So when the instructions say, "find this line of code in your template and insert this piece of code, I feel like I'm in Kindergarten. Or worse, because I actually knew most of what they taught us in Kindergarten before I got there. It's more like how I felt in calculus.

I dropped that course second semester, which might not bode well for me getting the blog to behave.

One feature that disappeared was the "keep reading" link. Since I know this created problems for slow-loading browser days, when I saw that Blogger claimed it had a quick and easy (so it said) 'jump link', I … jumped on it. But to use it, you had to change to their new editor. Cringe. New? The old one worked fine most of the time. But I gave it a shot.

There's Edits And Then There's Edits

First – thanks to Karin for being my guest yesterday. If you haven't read her post, or left a comment (there's a PRIZE, gang), Go. Do. It. Now. Winner announced Thursday, so there's still time today.


As I mentioned, I got my edits for WHERE DANGER HIDES back from the editor late Sunday. I refrained from opening it until Monday; otherwise I might have been up all night, and done a sloppy job.

She'd said it was a very clean read, not much for me to do at all, and that I could probably turn it around in a couple of days. Feeling pretty good, I opened the document. My first reaction was, "Did she send the wrong file?" because I didn't see any markups. I scrolled down, and at the bottom of page 7, at the end of the first scene, was her first comment. It said, "Great beginning." I felt even better. The next comment came at page 16, and was a "LOL." I was stoked.

Downsizing

Early on in my writing, when I was submitting, someone I'd send my manuscript asked if I'd ever considered writing category romance. If you're not familiar with the genre, these are the stereotypical "romance novels", virtually synonymous with Harlequin. There are dozens of imprints with several titles in each, and they're released each month.

They're also short. I'd be passing my own halfway point, and they'd be finished. Writing short is too much of a challenge for me.When I wrote my mystery, my target was to finish in 80-90,000 words, which is what the smaller presses are looking for. It came in at over 100,000, so I had to cut. Of course, every word was brilliant, but if I was going to try to market it as my first straight mystery, I couldn't exceed the guidelines. In short, I had only so much space for my words.

Now, assuming the house we've got under contract will actually be our new home, I'll have to take another look at downsizing. But this time, it won't be words, it'll be "stuff."

Editing: From the Clouds to the Weeds

Thanks to Kimber Chin for sharing her writing techniques.

A while back, I mentioned Wordle as a nifty "toy" for making word clouds. Thanks to a couple of Twitter posts, I decided to plug in my synopsis instead of just giving the tool my blog URL. The more often a word is used in the text you feed, the larger it will appear in the cloud.

The largest words are character names, which is good. A synopsis will focus on the characters. I also noticed that many of the dominant words were critical plot points. Also good.


(if you click on the image, you should be able to see an enlarged view)

On a whim, I decided to paste in Chapter One of my manuscript. I got a couple of surprises—

Landscape that Manuscript

Our contract with our current Realtor expires in about 10 days, and it's time to move on. Thus, we've been interviewing Realtors. A tedious chore. Given the state of the market, they're all eager to have our listing, which means we have to weed the hype out of their presentations and figure out which one will work best for us.

A while back, I compared selling a house to selling a manuscript. With our house, hubby has been adamant about not touching the existing vegetation in our front yard. It gives us privacy and is very low-maintenance, since it's primarily the natural flora. However, it also blocks any view of our house from the street. In short, negative curb appeal. Making it presentable will be a major effort.

When you send your manuscript out for the first time, be it one chapter for a critique group, three chapters for a contest, or you get that request for a full submission, you're relinquishing some of your control. The general 'rule' is that when more than two comments say the same thing, it's time to consider making serious changes. You have to put away the "my baby" attitude and think of the manuscript as the kid going off to school for the first time. All of a sudden, it's "But teacher says …" and you're no longer number one on the list.

Keep Reading...

So, the hubster has had to realize that selling our house means doing things that aren't really for "us" anymore. If it means giving up some of that seclusion, it's not like we're going to live with it forever. Yes, there's probably someone out there who would like a house you can't see from the street. But there are far too many more (according to the Realtors, anyway), who don't even want to come inside, or who come inside already thinking of what it will cost them to re-landscape. Too bad they don't think about how much water it will take to irrigate a lawn, or how they'll be stuck cutting that much more grass every week. But we have to look at the house as someone else's, even though we're still living in it. I'm not sure hubby is quite ready to let go, as he's hemming and hawing about calling the guy that normally does our tree trimming. He has to internalize the change first.

And I have to look at my manuscript as something marketable as well. Cutting words is like cutting back some of those palmettos out front. And like landscaping, some things need to be uprooted, some cut way back, and some gently trimmed. Logically, to cut back 10% of a manuscript means cutting one word in ten. Too bad you can't just delete every tenth word. Nope. You have to pick the right words. So I can't say I have to cut 312.5 words per chapter. I have to cut about 9600 words from my manuscript. I've deleted about 2000 so far, over 12 chapters.


My process: Major surgery first. Are there scenes that aren't moving the plot forward? Excise them. No matter that you love them. That they're well-written. Maybe you can transplant them.

Then, the minor surgery. I've checked my Idea board for the leftovers I talked about Monday. Some of them were hinted at in the manuscript as foreshadowing. Since they're not needed, I can do some cutting there. Also, I've added bright yellow post-its to my almost-empty Idea board with threads I can cut. For example, I had a car with Florida plates. To add a possible connection, I gave Rose and Sam some distant cousins there. But nothing really came from that other than, "We never see them and aren't in touch." So why have it in the book at all? Snip.

Check dialogue. I'm chatty; so are my characters. Do they ramble? Dialogue in books isn't a transcription of real life chit-chat. Cut qualifiers.

And so on, down to the itty-bitty butterfly bandages and plastic surgery. This is where a thesaurus earns its spot on the bookshelf. Weak words? Find stronger ones. Repeated words? Cut or vary. I have my list. No matter how hard I try to be aware of words like "just", they keep appearing. I have 187 of them in this manuscript. Less than in the last manuscript, but far too many. Most of them are just hanging around taking up space – oops – another one slipped in, didn't it?

Here's a before and after look at some general tightening of my prologue. A prologue needs to be concise, especially if it's merely setting the stage for what's to come. Keep in mind, these are MY preliminary edits, and should the manuscript sell, this could end up being changed yet again. First, the original:

His visitor found the old man's pen, the fat one with the cushioned grip. "This?"

The old man nodded. His visitor handed him the pen, then wandered around the room, hands in his pockets. The old man observed him, seeing the room through a stranger's eyes. Not a real bedroom, but more homey than a hospital room, the old man had thought when he'd been transferred to the medical wing. No longer. Now it was his prison cell. He sighed, a wheezy sound that echoed in his ears.

With his favorite pen in hand, the old man began writing. He'd written the missive countless times in his head, but would never commit it to paper. Not until now, when he knew the recipient would get it. Too many snooping eyes around this place.

Next, I thought I'd give you my thought processes as I read it with "tighten" in mind.

His visitor found (weak verb, shaky POV) the old man's pen, the fat one with the cushioned grip. "This?"

The old man nodded. ("nodded" is one of my crutch words [47 uses i draft #1], so I'll snip if at all possible) His visitor handed him the pen, then wandered around the room, hands in his pockets. The old man observed him, seeing the room through a stranger's eyes. Not a real bedroom, but more homey than a hospital room, the old man had thought when he'd been transferred to the medical wing. No longer. Now it was his prison cell. (All the room description isn't needed since we never come back here. We know from an earlier section he's in a medical setting) He sighed, a wheezy sound that echoed in his ears. (Not needed to advance the plot; unnecessary description slows the pace, and he's going to be hearing the television in the next paragraph)

With his favorite pen in hand, (we know it's a special pen, because he'd already rejected one the visitor had given him earlier, and if he's writing, we know the pen is in his hand) the old man began writing. He'd written the missive countless times in his head, but would never commit it to paper. Not until now, when he knew the recipient would get it. (since the visitor has arrived to give the old man the address he needs, this is also unnecessary.) Too many snooping eyes around this place.

Now for the edited version:

His visitor waved the old man's pen, the fat one with the cushioned grip. "This?"

"Please."

After handing him the pen, his visitor picked up the remote and settled in front of the television. The old man began writing. He'd written the missive countless times in his head, but would never commit it to paper. Not until now. Too many snooping eyes around this place.

So, shall we discuss?

Selling a House, Selling a Manuscript - What's the Difference?

Life is almost normal again. At least the routines are settling in. I enjoyed a leisurely second cup of coffee while I did some blog-hopping, catching up on all the sites I hadn't visited while I was away. Of course, as Murphy's Law would have it, I was about to shower and get back to reading the galleys for Nowhere to Hide when I got a call from a Realtor who wanted to show the house. In an hour.

Now, things weren't horrendous, since we'd cleaned thoroughly before we left, but other than laundry, I hadn't done much actually cleaning. The showing instructions say we prefer a day's notice, our cleaning service was scheduled for the next day, and we've gotten so few calls to see the house, we've become lax about getting everything in shape before doing anything else for the day.

Hubby had left early to go off on his research project on the coast. Had he left "his" areas in showcase shape? Not hardly. So, I'm frantically trying to get everything done in the allotted time so I can be out the door. Not perfect, but acceptable. The lawn could use a mowing, but I don't know that hubby would have cut the grass on such short notice. I know I certainly can't do it and everything else.

I pack up my galleys and go to Panera to have more coffee and get some work done. So far, most of what I'm finding are places where I'm not sure if I need a hyphen or not. Part of me feels good that with all our edits, we have a very clean manuscript. Another part thinks I'm not reading carefully enough, and there are plenty of glitches sneaking past.

Keep Reading...

Overall, reading galleys is more suited to these interrupted days than writing. What I'm looking for isn't plot anymore. Strictly typos. It's a different kind of reading. As a matter of fact, I've started at the end of the manuscript. This way, I'm not distracted by the story. And unlike my read for major edits, revisions, and continuity, I don't want to do this all at once. Small intervals seem to work better for me, so a half hour here, and hour there, or even a page or two at a time is acceptable. That way, I can concentrate of looking at each sentence for words and punctuation, rather than how they're moving the story forward, or revealing characterization.

I get home, pleased to see the Realtor was actually there. I deal with a few more household issues (like has the part for the dryer arrived yet? They don't know, they'll check and call me back.) Then, I got another call, this from a local Realtor who wanted to preview the house. He'd be here "shortly."

An hour later, he still hasn't shown, and I'm doing my chores in bits and pieces. Finally, he arrives, looks over the house, makes a few comments, and is gone. Will he bring clients? Who knows? He's not the first to comment that our natural vegetation out in front hides the house. However, that's exactly what we wanted. It provides privacy as well as keeps the need for high maintenance down. If that's going to be the deterrent to a sale, should we pay big bucks to have it pulled out and re-landscaped with "pretty" stuff? Or do we hope that if it's the only problem for a potential buyer, that they'll know they can do what they please after they buy the house?


That's sort of like deciding if you should change a manuscript every time you get feedback that suggests you do something different. When my agent was submitting the sequel to When Danger Calls, she'd pass along the reasons for rejection. They were as varied as the places she submitted it to, so there wasn't a common denominator. It never got to the point where I had to decide if I was willing to change the story to make the sale, and I wonder what I would have done. The genre is 'romantic suspense' but my books are 'romantic mystery.' Would I have uprooted my plot and replanted it with a villain's point of view, so the reader could be nervous about what was going to happen if an editor asked? I don't know. That wasn't really the kind of book I wanted to write.

Meanwhile, the manuscript is sitting on an editor's desk, and I'm waiting to hear if they'll like it with all the natural vegetation. And if not, will they simply reject it, or will they ask me to re-landscape?

Sighs of relief

What I'm reading: Deal Me In, bt Cynthia Thomason

What I'm working on: e-publishing workshop for Southern Lights
(Trial-and-error Powerpoint - I'm co-presenting with Dara Edmondson, and she knows a lot more about the program than I do, but I'm learning.)

I think I've done it. My taxes are finished. Now, I have no trouble paying my fair share (refuse to get into it any deeper than that), but I resent that the system is so complex that doing taxes should require paying someone else. Besides, the part I don't like is keeping all the records, which you have to do anyway. From there, it's just a matter of plugging in the numbers. No math skills required. But the tax prep software I've used for years has changed, and it's no longer as user-friendly as it used to be. All the more reason to be glad I'm done.

I also finished revisions for "Redshirted". I'll be re-reading it to see if I created any new holes, and then might be brave enough to submit it.

Which leaves me free to work on revisions for Unexpected Danger. I have to give my agent credit for an amazingly sharp eye. Doing basic clean-up has cut about 1000 words from the manuscript, which leaves me room to add the scenes she's suggested once I get into the actual revisions.

Edits and Revisions - not the same animal

What I'm reading: Killing Fear, by Allison Brennan (hurry up and write more, Allison - this one catches me up)

What I'm working on: Revisions & Edits for Unexpected Danger and "Redshirted"

My Cerridwen editor emailed me last night that Hidden Fire has a release date -- May 8th.

We'll see when and what I get in the way of their final line edits. Normally, I don't get to see the entire manuscript again; if there are any changes other than typos or grammatical problems, my editor will send only those sections. I'll be curious to see if the baby line at the end survives.

My agent likes to do a complete edit job on a manuscript before she sends it out. The edits are the 'easy' part--dealing with technical fixes. I'm also getting used to her style preferences, and it becomes an issue of deciding whether accepting her suggestions will change my voice. With crit partners, it's easier to reject suggestions although (honest!) I consider them all. But an agent who should know what editor are looking for means her comments have more weight, at least in my mind. It's harder to disagree, but she's made it clear I'm not obligated to change things.

The tough part is dealing with revisions. These are the places where she says, "You dropped this thread too soon," or, "You need to show more of such and so." The fact that she hit on some things I wondered about when I submitted the manuscript tells me my instincts were right, and I need to fix them. But it's kind of like trying to add the chocolate chips AFTER you've baked the cookies. Adding something to chapter 1 can have an impact on things all the way through 'the end.' Is it better to throw out the imperfect batch of cookies and bake new ones, or melt the chips and use them to frost the original batch? Writing an entire scene from scratch seems easier for me than trying to weave new information into what's already there. Either way, it means making sure the continuity remains intact.

And, I had the pleasure of speaking with a multi-published mystery author who had expressed interest in my mystery short (tentatively called "Redshirted") and then spent an hour on the phone with me pointing out places where she'd stumbled. Those were edits. Easy fixes -- change a character's name, hair color, a bit of history. But some of her suggestions also require revisions -- "he solved the case too easily", "you wrote Charlie off the page too soon," etc. Those mean revisions. Rewriting.

More fun than taxes, though.

Edits, Edits, Edits and crutch words

What I'm reading - Reason to Believe by Roxanne St. Claire in What You Can't See

What I'm working on: edits, edits, and more edits. Hoping to get to revisions.

I went through my editor's comments for Hidden Fire and then started re-reading the manuscript, thinking I could move through it quickly and get back to Unexpected Danger for my agent--after all, that's the manuscript that represents my next book, and it needs to be out there making the rounds. Hidden Fire and When Danger Calls are already in the system. As I was reading, I noticed a couple of my crutch words--the typewritten equivalents of 'um' as my fingers apparently needed to take a breath. After six manuscripts, I thought I was sensitized to them and avoided overuse. However, I decided to check. Thanks to Word's "highlight all items found in" feature, I plugged in my invisible friends. What a shock! Hundreds of unnecessary words. Even the one I think I've learned to avoid--"just"--showed up 130 times.

My 'starting' tally:
Just --- 130
Sure -- 121
Only -- 95
Really -- 56
Very -- 38

So, five trips through the manuscript on culling missions before I could even begin to read for better flow. What is it about these words that seem to flow off the fingertips without passing through the brain first? And why are they so invisible? The fact that they didn't seem to bother my editor doesn't matter--they bother me. And of course, as I read, I see instances where a word is repeated in back to back sentences or paragraphs. I think some of this is a by-product of cutting and pasting, and not seeing enough on the screen -- that 'perfect' word seemed perfect because I'd used it already and now it's on the page again. Or I hear the hero say it, and the heroine must hear him too, because she uses the same word or phrase. Or gesture--I discovered an awful lot of hand squeezing in the manuscript. Had to fix that, too.

Then, taking a brief break after dinner, I checked my email. Of course, I find copy edits for When Danger Calls. This manuscript has already been through the first (and second) round edits, but it's the last chance to catch typos, so even though there aren't too many markups on the manuscript, I still have to read it again. And it's for a different publisher, so there are different considerations.

Maybe I'll be able to get back to Unexpected Danger in a week or so. And my agent has a totally different editing style from the other two. Plus, these will be revisions, not just edits. Means a lot more 'writing' effort. I admire anyone who can immerse themselves in one set of characters and plot points to work on one project, and then shift gears to tackle another.

I'm so glad I didn't get any of this until I was already at SleuthFest so I was free to enjoy sessions. I was going to recap some highlights, but that'll have to wait until my next post. Right now, it's back to Hidden Fire.

Editing is writing, too

What I'm reading: Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

What I'm writing: Chapter 24, edits for Hurricane Breeze

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Rhonda Penders, publisher of The Wild Rose Press yesterday. One of the side-perks of living in central Florida is that just about everyone passes through eventually thanks to our surfeit of theme parks. Another of her authors, Dara Edmondson, was there. Apart from the noise level in the restaurant, we had a great time discussing the amazing skyrocketing success of The Wild Rose Press (for which I take absolutely no credit, but I do like to remember that I was their first outside contracted author, and I'm delighted to see their success). Especially since that first contract was for a short-short, Words, that had been contracted previously by a magazine that went out of business almost as soon as I signed the papers. It had also been contracted by an internet audio book site, which folded as well. Third time's the charm, I guess!

I'm feeling 'writerly' today, having received my next (and last, I think) round of edits for Hurricane Breeze. Now that the story issues have been resolved, and thank goodness they were minor--primarily clarification, not plot--it's time to print it out and read it for all those little typos that sneak in when you turn off your computer.

And, I heard from the Five Star Publishing editor I'll be working with on When Danger Calls as well. She's given me her timeframe, and it's going to be a challenge not to try to scramble through it before I leave on my trip in November. However, she doesn't need it turned around as quickly as the Cerridwen Press editors do, so it seems like a luxury to be able to take more time.

Oh yeah -- and then there's the 'real life' job ---the one I get paid for, the one that's paying for that November trip which is part business--which will be getting crazy.