If Only It Were Just Writing
Posted under: Edits are Done, Yay!
Last night I finally folded in the last of the edits (from the generous and deft hands of Steve Hall) to Choose, Volume 2.
So, edits are done, yay!
But the book isn’t done.
It wasn’t done when I finished the first draft. It wasn’t done when I finished revising the first draft into something marginally less embarrassing at parties. It wasn’t done when my sharp-eyed editor flagged all the bits he thought should be fixed. It won’t be done when I finish gathering all the ancillary material (listing homages and screencapping all the polls). It won’t be done when I’ve finished wrestling with photoshop to get decent book covers in specific sizes. It won’t even be done when I finally get everything assembled and properly formatted for “print”.
The writing is done, but the book isn’t even close to finished.
Why Post This?
So why am I posting this?
It’s not to invite a pity party or even to belly-ache about the process.
The reason I post this is because so little of it is obvious. Writers write, right? But so much of that, above, isn’t actually wordsmithing.
While I’m doing everything past step 1, all I can think about is how much I’d rather be working on The Next Big Project. How much I’d rather be writing something new, or working on another story.
Sure, I could outsource some of it … but I’d have to pay someone to do it, and right now writing is a money sink, not a money faucet. I am ridiculously fortunate to have a skilled editor with time to donate to the print version of Choose … and time also to donate toward making ME a better writer. (editor love!)
Books Vs Writing
There’s more to making a book than just writing.
There are times I value the control I have over my content and other times I bemoan the loss of free time spent trying to get the cover just so.
Most of the time, though, I really wish I could just hand the fledgling manuscript off to an expert at this point whilst I go back to crafting the next adventure.
I imagine that’s true of a lot of writers. As badly as their fans want them to hurry up and get the next book out, they probably wish twice as fervently that they could work on the next story. As they glance over their stacks of bills and invoices and bank statements and edited manuscripts and coffee-stained desktops, I bet they’re whispering, “If only it were just writing.”
For the record, I <3 you more. :)
*laughs* You’d have to, to put up with all my little editorial errors that I REALLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
<3
Congrats! I can’t wait to get Choose Vol.2!
Wish I could help you with the other stuff, let me know if there’s anything I can do.
willydd3´s last post ..Shifting Priorities-Chapter Five
Hee, I have the draft printed out and sitting next to me, just WAITING for me to go through and hunt down all the homages.
Konichi-wa Tami-chan!
My my, your XML is looking mighty well formatted and valid today!
Much better than yesterday!
And you know as they say,
“Happy XML makes for happy ECM which makes for a happy Tami-chan”, des-ne?
Ok, so maybe they don’t say that.
But they will, cuz I wrote it on the Interweb! :-)
See ya bright and surly!
Sugoi! *high five* How’d you get it fixed? Did you find the offending package, or did you have to roll them all back?
It was a package that hadn’t even been updated!
I found that out the hard way, hosing my dev in the process!
:-(())
More on Monday. ;-)