One of the problems of being your own publisher (for me, at least) is dealing with your own impatience. Having finished my first draft of Stripped I laboriously worked through a physical copy editing, rewriting, cutting characters, adding scenes and such. Then I went through and typed up all of these handmade changes into a second draft (at which point more changes were made as I fixed up problems with my edits and problems my edits had failed to spot).
Now it’s with my editor (along with my notes on what I feel still needs to be done so I can include her feedback in those changes) and I’m left with a void of time when I don’t have anything to do on the book. When things are outside of my control they are deeply infuriating. I find I have to stop myself from making additional changes until I get the editorial feedback. I must resist the nagging temptation to think, ‘hang editorial input, I’m just going to publish it now!’ Digital publishing means you can make edits post-release, but this should be treated as a safety net, not as a trampoline on which to bounce haphazardly forward.
Compounding this is the fact that Sullen Art: Part One is also currently with its editor (albeit a different editor) so I’m left with the feeling that both my projects are now being worked on by someone else and there’s nothing I can do. Incidentally, please don’t think by this that I’m knocking either my editors or the editorial process; this just happens to be a point of calm after months of frenzied writing.
If you hear a repetitive sound coming out of the internet, it will most likely be me tapping my fingers on my keyboard as I wait for editorial response.
Now it’s with my editor (along with my notes on what I feel still needs to be done so I can include her feedback in those changes) and I’m left with a void of time when I don’t have anything to do on the book. When things are outside of my control they are deeply infuriating. I find I have to stop myself from making additional changes until I get the editorial feedback. I must resist the nagging temptation to think, ‘hang editorial input, I’m just going to publish it now!’ Digital publishing means you can make edits post-release, but this should be treated as a safety net, not as a trampoline on which to bounce haphazardly forward.
Compounding this is the fact that Sullen Art: Part One is also currently with its editor (albeit a different editor) so I’m left with the feeling that both my projects are now being worked on by someone else and there’s nothing I can do. Incidentally, please don’t think by this that I’m knocking either my editors or the editorial process; this just happens to be a point of calm after months of frenzied writing.
If you hear a repetitive sound coming out of the internet, it will most likely be me tapping my fingers on my keyboard as I wait for editorial response.
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