The Writing Life: Edits, Edits, Edits
So I’m in the process of doing edits on my third novel, Lucky Bastard. These edits are based on feedback and notes from my editor at Simon & Schuster and about a 90-minute phone conversation spread out over a couple of days which ended up with me writing down about four pages of notes.
And you thought writing the book was the tough part.
Right now, I’m on my third pass through the manuscript over the past three weeks, making edits based on all of this feedback. So far, including the two rounds of edits the novel went through before I gave it to my writers group and the two additional rounds of edits it went though before I sent it to my agent and the round of edits I did based on her feedback before it even went to my editor, that makes eight passes through the book I’ve done so far. I’ll have another round of line edits, copy edits, then proof page edits, bringing the grand total of full manuscript edits up to eleven before the book goes to press.
It better not have any mistakes in it, that’s all I have to say.
The process wasn’t a whole lot different with Breathers or Fated. Both of them probably went through close to ten rounds of edits before the books hit the shelves. And every time I do a round of edits, I read the complete manuscript.
That’s the thing no one tells you and that you don’t realize when you start down this path of writing: before your book gets published, you’re going to end up reading it a dozen or more times before it hits the shelves. So you better like what you’ve written because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with it.
It’s kind of like choosing a partner. Or your friends. You better choose wisely because if it turns out you don’t enjoy their company, then you’re going to get sick of them pretty fast.
