Saturday, January 31, 2009

Coming Up for Air

Last night I finished the revisions for The Company You Keep, which is going to be reissued by Crescent Moon Press. Even though this book was published previously, there were lots of things to fix. For instance, in one spot I had used the word "say" when the correct word would have been "stay." There was even one spot where I used the wrong character's name! Horrors! These things do happen. The book has 84,000 words in it, and each one needs to be scrutinized. The editor said I had used some words too often--and she was right. (Hint: Everyone needs an editor.) But even editors miss errors. I've read plenty of published books where I found mistakes. But I don't want a single misprint in my own books.

I've spent the past month combing through this book--though the last two weeks were the most intensive. I ignored all my friends. I did not go anywhere--with the exception of trudging off to the real job every morning, going to Curves three times a week, and going to the supermarket. (Such is the glamorous life of an author.)

My house is very dusty. I am more than two years behind in organizing family photos. (I used to be on top of that.)

But today, the sun is shining here in New Jersey. I am going to enjoy it. Maybe I'll clean a bit, or put some photos in the album. Or maybe I'll read someone else's book. :^)

But it's officially my day off. On Monday, I'll go back to writing.

1 comment:

Philip A. Kledzik said...

Penelope, I just finished sending my manuscript for my second novel into my publisher. After submitting it the first time, they recommended having it edited, it woud have cost over $1700 (the number of words is about 71500). I couldn't afford that, so I edited it again myself. I found the same problem you did. I had changed some charaters' names part way through writing the novel, and I had missed about 4 of them. I found a neat feature in Word that I can have it find all the uses of a word or phrase (one at a time) and change them all. Boy did that save my wife and me some time! I look forward to reading more of your blogs.

Philip A Kledzik
"An Issue of the Heart"
authorphilipkledzik.books.officelive.com