![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Leaving home
The completed manuscript for THE FIRST BETRAYAL should arrive at Bantam today, a mere 8 days behind schedule :-)
Like a parent with a child leaving home for the first time, it's a mix of pride and anxiety, wondering if this child is ready to face the world.
Busy couple of days coming up, as I sort through the gear for the bike trip, and try to decide what I need and what I can do without. Also need to go through my TBR stack to decide which books will come with me.
Reading: Finished CURSE THE DARK by Laura Anne Gilman, the second book in her Retrievers series. Much of the book takes places during a heat wave in New York, which gave it a certain resonance during the record heat.
Like a parent with a child leaving home for the first time, it's a mix of pride and anxiety, wondering if this child is ready to face the world.
Busy couple of days coming up, as I sort through the gear for the bike trip, and try to decide what I need and what I can do without. Also need to go through my TBR stack to decide which books will come with me.
Reading: Finished CURSE THE DARK by Laura Anne Gilman, the second book in her Retrievers series. Much of the book takes places during a heat wave in New York, which gave it a certain resonance during the record heat.
no subject
You're sending it in... next they read, request changes, you go through it, there's a proof involved somewhere, and final edits... when do you expect this to actually hit the shelves? And how much of a break do you get before starting the next book?
Probably more than you want to know...
Here's how the next year looks for this book.
First, my editor Anne Groell will read the book and if things follow true to form she'll send me a long revision letter and her comments written on the physical manuscript. Anne is great to work with because she gives concrete feedback, telling you what she likes, as well as what needs to be changed to make this a better story.
I'll then have a window to revise the book-- this will be about 4-8 weeks. I mail it back to them, and then it goes to the copyeditor. When the copyeditor is done, I'll see the copyedited manuscript and have a chance to clarify things (or object if there are any egregious changes). Copyedits generally have a short turnaround time, usually a couple of weeks from the time they land on my doorstep until they are due in New York.
I'll send in the copyedits, and sometime after that the galleys will arrive
on my doorstep. These will need to be turned around fairly quickly, generally within a week. Given that the book is being released in June, I would expect to see the galleys around January. The galleys are also called page proofs, and at this stage you can't do much more than correct typos, or perhaps insert a clarifying sentence.
Some of this depends on their production schedule and how many other projects are in the queue for the various stages. In general it is best to turn around my deliverables as quickly as possible, to minimize the impact of any schedule slippage on the publisher's side.
In the meantime, I'll be working on the next book. I plan on starting it after I get back from my bike trip, keeping in mind that it is due to Bantam in March 2006, which gives me the next eight months to write it. I know just how the book opens, so I'm looking forward to finally being able to write the scene I've had in my head for the last six months. And in many ways it will be easier to write than THE FIRST BETRAYAL because I can use all the worldbuilding I did for the first book.
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
I'm going to ask another question, and if I start getting too annoying, just swat me away, k?
How do you fit in writing with a full time job? I think about my poor languishing WiP and then I look at those deadlines for edits (and frankly, I just loathe rereading and rereading my own stuff, and am horridly slow at) and just cringe at the idea of somehow fitting it in. Does everything else just fall by the wayside during those time crunches?
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Having a day job means there are indeed time crunches when I don't have a social life. I don't get to see movies, I feel guilty going out to dinner with friends when I should be writing, or I emerge from the book haze to find out that everyone is raving about a new TV show that I've totally missed (I'm thinking of BSG here).
Fitting things in involves juggling priorities. I find deadlines keep me incented-- if I have no definite deadline then it's easy to make excuses why I'm doing something other than working on the book. But if I know that I have a hard deadline to turn around revisions, then I know what I'm doing with my 'free' time between now and then.
There's also a ruthless practicality that comes from working on a deadline. If you only have two months for revisions, you have to do triage, to fix the parts that can be fixed, making sure that the important changes get made. You're not going to get the chance to rewrite each scene five or six times until you're satisfied. You need to learn how to say "This is the best I can make this at this time" and then move on.
Of course if the book needs major rework, chances are your editor will understand and give you more time. I'd actually prefer having two months to do revisions than six months-- two months keeps me focused while six months gives me way too much time for second guessing myself.
Copyedits are mostly a chance to make sure that the copyeditor hasn't done anything horrific, and that all the important goofs have been caught. Things as small as a signet ring changing color between scenes, or the time when I had the never-ending month that must have been at least ten weeks long based on everything that took place during it. Depending on how light the copyedits are, I can check these over and respond over the course of a couple of nights.
By the galley stage, I've read my book so often that my eyes glaze over. To keep me focused, I use a trick I learned in college-- I start with the last page of the book and read my way from back to front. That keeps me from getting lost in the story and missing the details. Reading galleys takes longer than reading the same length book for pleasure, but can be done in a single night if need be.
Hope this was helpful.
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
What cons are on your schedule for this year?
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Re: Probably more than you want to know...
Shannon