Thursday, May 22, 2008

Colds and Quilts and Edits and Things

"I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it." ~Chaim Potok

Well, thanks to lots of tea, chicken soup, and zinc, I think my cold is on its way out (thanks everyone for your well wishes and home remedies). I hope so...I have no time to be sick.

Hey, if you haven't popped over there already, go and visit Dru's blog, and check out her latest quilt project! Actually, it's a wall hanging ~ an experiment with using actual book covers on the quilt itself (and there's more cool stuff to come besides the covers. Just wait). She's one talented lady, right??

Finally, Marianne mentioned her Samhain editor's process the other day, and I thought I'd share my experiences here, with my own (whom I love, by the way). With One Night in Boston, my editor sent me the first round of edits 2 months before my scheduled release date and asked for a week's turn-around. Those edits focused mostly on content/plot tweaking/sentence restructuring. The next round came about 1 month before my release date and focused mainly on any sentence/wording problems we'd missed the first time through. Then it went to a FLE (Final Line Editor) who proofed just for grammar and mechanical errors we both missed.

My scheduled release date for One Night in Memphis (according to my "Coming Soon" page over at Samhain) is July 8. I've yet to receive my first round of edits, though, which makes me a little nervous, since that's only 6 weeks away or so. Maybe the manuscript is SO brilliant that my editor figures it needs little revising. Right? ;) Or maybe she's swamped and knows we've worked together before and the quick turn-around won't be a problem. Either way, I'm hoping I'll see it in my email inbox before too long!

4 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

OMG... you haven't gotten your edits yet? Yikes! I'd be a wreck. "Kitchen Matches" edits are on their way to a FLE already, and my release is on August 12th.

I'm sure your ms is brilliant. I can't WAIT to read it. :-)

Dru's quilt is awesome. I think she may have something there -- betcha there are a whole lot of authors who would love something like that.

windycindy said...

You are all so talented! I enjoy reading about your lives and accomplishments! Keep up the great work. Cindi

Dru said...

Thanks Allie.

I'm glad you're feeling better.

Anonymous said...

Isn't the quilt gorgeous? Thanks for sharing the process with your editor.