So Your Book Just Got Edited…

[ursulav]

Enough people made vaguely interested noises in the editing process that I thought I’d talk about it a bit. It’s definitely the tedious, grim, discouraging bit of the process, but it occurs to me that you, O Prospective Author, may find it even more traumatic if nobody tells you what to expect!

First, two caveats. I’ve had…I think…twelve books

Comments

[kateshort]

This is EXCELLENT. Sharing!

[vikingprincess]

This is both daunting and really cool to know. Thanks for the look inside the process!

[dragonsong]

I love all of your process posts. It's fascinating to peer into a corner of the world that I'd never see otherwise, given that the only publishing I'm likely to do will be in scientific academia (where they don't let you play with the fun words, since they're too subjective).

[dornbeast]

If anybody’s ever interested in hear about the weirdass stage of the writing process known as “editing,” I would be happy to do a post about it sometime, but I’m not sure if it’s any more interesting to write about than to live through.

I don't know about how interesting this was to write, but it's very interesting to read. On the other hand, I suspect that under the proper circumstances, you could make a paragraph about looking up a phone number interesting to read.

I'm not sure what the proper circumstances would be, but I'm guessing it would either be a large check made out to you, or something involving whiskey, mulch, blood, or wildlife in your backyard. (Possibly more than one of the items off that list, and hopefully not your blood.)

[ralphmelton]

This is actually quite a lot like the process I go through with writing and reviewing code. With, sadly, less "Ha!" bits.

[sprrwhwk]

Generally the bits that make me go "Ha!" in code are the bits where I am Being Too Clever for readability/maintainability/sanity and need to dial it back. This may be related to why coders are more morose than authors.

[tashabear]

I had a "Ha!" moment when I ran across a comment that said < !-- Kill Darryl. -->