Done

“Your next book is coming out in six weeks, right?”

“Yep.”

“Aren’t you so glad to have it done?”

“Um…I’m still editing.”

“I thought you were done?”

*Sigh*

Coming up on the release day for my second book, people who love me have been having different versions of this conversation with me. And it all boils down to this…people who haven’t taken a seed of an idea all the way to a hold-in-your-hands novel don’t understand the process. Hell, I don’t even understand the process entirely yet. Writing and publishing are moving targets. But ‘done’ is a word that starts an involuntary tic in my right eye.

So.

In the interest of maybe helping readers who love books understand a bit better, here’s a sneak peak into the editing process for this upcoming release, Book Two in the Rise series, Curse of Ashes. Understanding, of course, this was different than any other book I’ve written (four currently) and will likely be different from any other book I ever write. Here's a little replay of the race to get to the prize, the finish line, publication.

Rough draft

This is the fun part, for me at least. Lots of writers find this part to be the most difficult, the dreaded blank page. For me, it’s the beginning where anything can happen. My first draft of Curse of Ashes was started in November of 2013. I wrote it as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) project. The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I did that. For reference, the final manuscript of Curse ended just over 102,000. NaNo was challenging and fun. But the book stayed at 50k for a while. I poked around with it but didn’t return to the book seriously until NaNo in 2016, where I wrote another 50k in the story and actually had a completed draft. A rough draft. Like, the morning after mixing too much tequila and whiskey rough. Rough.

Development Editing

Editing is so many things. And this is where I think people start to struggle with the idea of done. Could someone have read the complete manuscript in December of 2016?  Yep. It wouldn’t have been good, though, by any stretch. It was the skeleton of a completed story.

When trying to wield something as weighty and oddly-shaped as a novel, things morph. Like when the flight attendant tells you to be careful when you open the overhead bin, because things could shift mid-flight. That happens from the beginning of writing a novel to the end, too. Especially in the Fantasy genre. We have a whole ‘nother issue. Magic, supernatural beings, and rituals that have to have rules that are consistent and make some kind of sense. 

Also, this is a series, which makes things that much harder. I’m not just thinking about this book, but how these characters and their choices might affect something two books from now, and also making sure it doesn’t contradict something that happened in the first book. It’s… a lot. And then there’s this book, making it a complete and enjoyable story. All kinds of stuff goes awry. A plot thread might not make it all the way through, or it might be frayed and ugly at the end. A character might unexplainedly disappear for chapters at a time (I’m talking to you, Valentina.)

That’s developmental editing. Some chapters get scrapped entirely from the rough draft as unnecessary or just…bad. It’s rearrange and sharpen. It’s refine and sculpt. It’s also completely subjective as to when it’s done. Because we’re human and imperfect and things can always be better.

Curse of Ashes has been in developmental editing ever since that first draft finished in late 2016. I sent the completed story to my agent in March of 2019, she sent me back her notes and away I went again. Another round of developmental edits. I’ve also drafted the third book in the series during that stretch of time, which influenced some of the events of the second book which required me to go back and make even more tweaks.

Final Edits / Copyediting

Now it’s done. It’s been through the rough stage, the development stage a few times. The story is done. You send it off to a copy editor to read. Then they give it back to you. Suddenly, the story is no longer done again. I sent off the manuscript for Curse to be copyedited on October 1st. Two sets of eyes additional sets of eyes looked at it, neither of whom had read the first book. Those two took very different approaches and I had to decide what needed to change. I had to revisit decisions I'd made about the first book, what grammatical and stylistic choices were made and be consistent with them. I got their copy edit notes back on October 10th knowing the final manuscript needed to be turned in November 1st (which, ah, actually, was not true. October 22nd ended up being the real date.)

Copyediting is the nitty-gritty, nit-picky stuff that marks a professional novel. Oxford commas consistently. Or not. Do you always capitalize ‘archangel?’ Copasetic or copacetic (either is correct.) Affect vs effect (depends on context.) Mr. Miagi is, in fact, Mr. Miyagi. 'Seem as how' is not a thing. But 'seeing as how' is. Stuff like that. Missed words that someone else who isn’t the author can magically find that authors just can’t see in their own works. Sentences the author thinks are fantastic but don’t make sense to anyone else. Maybe some last-minute development stuff or odd catches. ‘He was wearing a hoodie two pages ago…now he’s in a t-shirt.’ Stuff like that. The final, final polish.

Now it’s done. Again.

Off to be formatted.

Formatting or, the Last Chance

The copyedited manuscript goes off to be formatted. It’s done. I actually sent in the final copy edited manuscript on October 30th. I got it back formatted for publication the same day.

Then the formatted manuscript comes back as a file that looks pretty and recognizable as a book. And you really have to make sure it’s done.

One final read through, all the added stuff, front and back matter (Acknowledgements, dedications, About the Author, etc.) Making sure all of that is also done. That’s due back to the agency by November 6th.

Publication: AKA Done

There are a lot of dones to get through before you get to DONE. I’m still pretty new at this author thing, but there are few things sweeter than seeing your creative work as a completed thing for other people to enjoy. I’m so looking forward to sharing Curse with everyone.

November 22^nd it’s truly done.

Preorder Curse of Ashes at your favorite retailer:

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