Edit Update

Not a lot of time for me today–too deep in the throes of library work for me to find much time to post. However, I wanted to let you know how the edit of Vodnik is going. I’ve been rereading it, making notes on the copy my editor sent me (which she had made extensive notes on already). One thing jumps out at me:

There’s still so much I want to change.

How is that possible? I’d just edited the thing less than half a year ago, and I was really happy with it then. And that was the fourth major edit of the book! So how is it that my pages now have so much purple (her notes) and red (my notes) scrawled all over them?

I’d always heard authors talk about how they didn’t like reading their old books, because they’d see so much they wanted to change, and I hadn’t really understood that. I think I might be catching a glimmer of it now, though. I’m sure there will be pieces of this that I just don’t like once it’s printed, but in a way, I think it’s like a house. When Denisa and I saw our new house, we loved it. There was just so much to like. But once we moved in, we started noticing the things we didn’t like. The details that we wanted to fix. We can go on fixing and tinkering for years to come, but that doesn’t change the first impression the house makes on people. That first impression is still largely the same, because an outsider doesn’t see the details–not right away.

To someone reading my book for the first time, they’ll just have that first impression. The little details and bumps that are hopefully all that’s left to annoy me by that time won’t stand out to them. The goal is to get as many of them out of the way as I can before it’s published.

Anyway–I’d guess I have about three or four more days of reading and making notes, and then I’ll start the actual writing again. I have until the 21st–plenty of time.

Famous last words, right?