Final Edits

Well, I'm finally beginning to feel like I might be about to have a book published! The final edits and proof-reading are done and my publisher is asking me for things like a bio for the back of the book. (Who knew writing a short biography could cause so much angst?)

I say the final edits are done. Well, they are. I keep telling myself that. It's a done deal. The book is finished. Really. Of course, I finally had to stop re-reading and just send the damned thing in, as my husband kept telling me to do. I probably could have rewritten most of the book and still found things I think I could have worded better.

On the upside of this task is the fact that computers make editing way easy. Thank God for computers. For those of us who remember manual typewriters, Ko-Rec-Type, Wite-out, and carbon paper computers are a true space-age miracle. I think everyone under the age of forty or so should have the privilege of typing a ten-page term paper and finding a paragraph left out in the middle of page one at three in the morning. I defy them not to go into hysterics and throw the typewriter across the room!

And think about those poor unfortunates of previous eras. I mean, just imagine some innocent sap in the fourteenth century slaving away at an illuminated page of the Bible for hours on end in a cold, damp monastery and realizing he left out a rather important not, as in thou shalt commit adultery. While a good time might be had by some who would love to adhere to this version, I'm pretty sure said monk's boss wouldn't find it amusing. Talk about hysterics.

But there is a down side - computers make editing way easy! No problem slipping that paragraph back in place or adding the all important not. However, I wonder how many times I would have rewritten the same sentence over and over, changed word placement that no one but I will ever notice, or find just the right adjective to mean the exact sort of 'pretty' I intended, if I had to hand write or re-type whole pages. And then I wonder if all of this tinkering actually made my writing any better. Maybe it made it worse. Sort of like changing your first answer on a test.

At any rate for better or worse - I'm going with better since there's not much I can do about it now - Roses and Daisies and Death, Oh My! is on its way to becoming a reality. And that's pretty exciting. Come December you can be the judge of whether or not all the tinkering worked as well as I hope it did.

In the meantime I'm wiping my brow and saying "Phew, glad that's done." Edits finished, short story written, deadlines met - now back to my next book, Roses Are Dead, My Love before I forget just what I did with the Mickey Mantle autographed rookie card that's causing so much murder and mayhem in Old Towne.