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The Upside of Copy-Edits
Mar. 27th, 2010 12:37 amI think that I like my books most at the copy-editing stage.
By this time I am through the agony of working through the beginning, a process which may involve several false starts as well as the general feeling of pushing forward through sludge. I have gotten through the peaks and valleys of doubt and loathing (from doubt to loathing and back to doubt, doubt being the peak of this cycle), and enjoyed my own enthusiasm and exhaustion at finishing, even though the end of the first draft simply signals the next big section of work.
I have a beginning on a long post about revision (likely to be several posts), and it won't appear here very soon, but it will appear eventually. But in any case I love to revise, and I have come to find the process of revising the most satisfying part of writing.
But I think I like my books best at the copy-editing stage.
It is at this point that I can do a thorough read through of the fully revised (my books go through multiple revisions) manuscript without the same sense of urgency I have when revising, usually to deadline, and fixing things all over the place. So I can enjoy my own work, or the sense that I have that I succeeded at least in some measure in capturing the feel and pacing and detail and emotion I hoped to get hold of. I can also make final changes: I can sharpen a dialogue if one needs sharpening; I can change details to better fit the landscape; I can add bits and bobs of atmosphere that I didn't know or didn't think to add before. I can catch things that I simply missed in the frenzy of revisions because sometimes one just does miss something.
By the time I hit the page proofs, I'm starting to feel I've looked at it one too many times, and in any case at that point I'm not reading it, I'm looking for typos. And while the book's publication is always exciting, by that time I'm usually well into something else so the published book feels like old news.
I'm 117 pages into the c-e ms of Cold Magic, out of 504 plus some pages of extra material (acknowledgments and a Q&A). It's a clean and smart copy-edit, for which I am always grateful.
Cold Magic is in some ways very much a "Kate Elliott" book with the way landscape, world building, and political concerns intertwine, but in terms of point of view and pacing, it's quite different from my other books. It's also the first book I've ever written that has a . . . oh, wait, that would be a spoiler. Onward.
By this time I am through the agony of working through the beginning, a process which may involve several false starts as well as the general feeling of pushing forward through sludge. I have gotten through the peaks and valleys of doubt and loathing (from doubt to loathing and back to doubt, doubt being the peak of this cycle), and enjoyed my own enthusiasm and exhaustion at finishing, even though the end of the first draft simply signals the next big section of work.
I have a beginning on a long post about revision (likely to be several posts), and it won't appear here very soon, but it will appear eventually. But in any case I love to revise, and I have come to find the process of revising the most satisfying part of writing.
But I think I like my books best at the copy-editing stage.
It is at this point that I can do a thorough read through of the fully revised (my books go through multiple revisions) manuscript without the same sense of urgency I have when revising, usually to deadline, and fixing things all over the place. So I can enjoy my own work, or the sense that I have that I succeeded at least in some measure in capturing the feel and pacing and detail and emotion I hoped to get hold of. I can also make final changes: I can sharpen a dialogue if one needs sharpening; I can change details to better fit the landscape; I can add bits and bobs of atmosphere that I didn't know or didn't think to add before. I can catch things that I simply missed in the frenzy of revisions because sometimes one just does miss something.
By the time I hit the page proofs, I'm starting to feel I've looked at it one too many times, and in any case at that point I'm not reading it, I'm looking for typos. And while the book's publication is always exciting, by that time I'm usually well into something else so the published book feels like old news.
I'm 117 pages into the c-e ms of Cold Magic, out of 504 plus some pages of extra material (acknowledgments and a Q&A). It's a clean and smart copy-edit, for which I am always grateful.
Cold Magic is in some ways very much a "Kate Elliott" book with the way landscape, world building, and political concerns intertwine, but in terms of point of view and pacing, it's quite different from my other books. It's also the first book I've ever written that has a . . . oh, wait, that would be a spoiler. Onward.