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Writing: The Life - has a new home!
Submitted by Seth on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 11:34
in

11-19: No time for writing new YJ today. Here's why: I got my copy-edited manuscript from NY and it's now 300 pages of pencil-edited work that I need to look over. No, I don't need to put the changes into the computer, thank you!, but I do need to OK/Not-OK everything that's been done. The good news: it's wearing me down and I'm starting to just accept things. The bad news: every OK is now "okay," ribcage actually is two words, tracksuit is one word, homerun is actually two words... and the list goes on. Now I'm also capitalizing the first letter after a colon when the attached phrase is an independent clause. Did you care? No. Nevertheless...

I've got 6 days now to turn this puppy around and send it back. Good times!!

Then back to writing my Stanford class for the spring.

Big deal blog

Randy's picture
Submitted by Randy on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 22:57.
So you make a big deal about taking the writing life out of the forums and into the blogs, and all you post is one paragraph?? and you call yourself a writer

Heh.

Seth's picture
Submitted by Seth on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 01:31.
Good one. Glad to see someone on my ass!

Timelines

Mystery Dawg's picture
Submitted by Mystery Dawg on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 14:55.
Isn't it amazing that the publishing company can take months to a year to review your work and then you get less than a week to make revisions on something you wrote probably 2 years ago or more. The whole process seems strange to me. It would seem to me to be more beneficial if a writer was working hand in hand with an editor through the whole process from development of idea to completion of manuscript. I know some writers prefer that they write a complete manuscript before someone reads it and others like to send a few chapters at a time to readers for review. I just wonder how fresh the ideas and emotions of the piece of writing are when you haven't revisited them for such a long time and/or are now involved in writing a new project with a different focus? After you return these revisions, will you get a final chance to proof the galleys before publication?

Copy Edits

Seth's picture
Submitted by Seth on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 15:15.

Yeah, I will get another chance to proof the galleys before it's all said and done. And I'm saving that pass for my last, full read. That's where I'll really read the thing again. This pass was basically just me OK-ing or STET-ing the corrections/changes that the copy editor made, which were extensive, anal, and overall really well-done. She/he (they wouldn't tell me) caught a lot of little things I'd never have gotten right and basically brought his/her expertise to the table, which, although I teach English and correct a lot of papers, is not my forte. Out of 273 MS pages, there were exactly TWO with no marks. Jeez. Though some of these were type-setter's marks, like underlining my italics so the printer knows what to do. Stuff like that. 

It really wasn't all that bad to go over. But yeah, publishing industry is like watching ice melt in a refrigerator set to 36 degress.

That process that you talk about: more back and forth, that more what I think Sigs' project with Contagious was like. The fast tracking had a lot of back and forth. 


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