When my book was acquired in August, Andrew Karre was the editor. The day he left for another publishing house, he delivered editorial notes on the manuscript and talked me through them on the phone. So I worked diligently on those edits/comments/suggestions and delivered them to my new editor, Brian Farrey, a few weeks later. And then I freaked out. This is like getting a Christmas list from one person and using it to choose a gift for another person. What if Brian’s sensibilities were totally different from Andrew’s? What if he didn’t get me at all? What if I had to rewrite the whole thing?
Last night I came home from a few technology-free days away to find Brian’s notes on the manuscript in my email. Reading an editor’s notes on your work is an exercise in cringing. Every time he called me out on something dumb or pointed out a shortcut I’d taken, I winced. The good news: I know how to fix all of the issues. The better news: Brian thinks the manuscript is clean enough to send to my agent so she can sell foreign rights. The bad news: I have a few days of cringing ahead of me as I scroll through the edits.
Happy New Year, everyone! May 2009 be full of love and free of cringe!
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7 comments:
I can't wait to see he book in print. I know you'll pull it off.
Best of luck, Christy! And you said it yourself--you know how to fix everything. That has to be more than half the battle :) I can't wait to see it in print, either.
If a good kind of cringing exisits, this would see to be it!
Viva PoD!
Sounds like you're close, baby!!! Can't wait to read it!
How great that you know how to fix everything--and you got your revision notes just in time to work on them while the kiddies go back to school. Right?
And, how much fun to get to think about foreign rights!!!
sf
Thanks for looking on the bright side, friends!
Man, I'd be so psyched to GET notes FROM an editor. But yeah, it must be kind of odd to go from one editor to the next. But he did write on your blog, so this guy is on it. And remember, you wrote a solid thing that attracted an agent, and now a publishing house, it's not tissue paper, it's a frickin' book! Think of it as the thing you channeled in the first place drawing new things to itself. Feel. FEEL the power Christy!
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