Ooh . . . look . . . thumbs!

I had a pretty good recipe slated for today, but I got a couple of messages about what's happening with the book, since I promised to write about it often, and so far . . . haven't.

It's  funny, I was thinking about it this morning . . . sipping tea of all things . . . a nice soft indian black tea with a touch of currant . . . it's only available in Disneyland . . . which is my way of saying I have connections . . . and I thought to myself "hmm . . . what is happening?"

Truth be told . . . no idea.

On the morning of July 6th I got an email from my editor, letting me know that whenever I had a final draft ready for her, we can begin.

She specified that "Final Draft" meant that I'm no longer allowed to wake up in the middle of the night and decide to rewrite the entire third act because there aren't enough ponies.

Which is silly.

There's already two.

Two ponies should be enough for any girl.

What's funny about that message . . . is . . . when I got her email, I was right in the middle of rewriting the first fifty pages.

Just so you know . . . the first fifty pages got me in the door . . . regardless of how I feel about them now.

I told her that she clearly knew her writers well, because rewriting was exactly what I was doing.

Just so we're clear, I was rewriting the 8th draft at this point.

She told me not to fuss too much and that if I'm concerned about certain passages, we can work on them together.

That is in fact . . . her job.

And I don't mean that in a smarmy "do your job lady!" kinda way.

I mean that in an "If I lean on her expertise . . . and let her do the thing . . . everything will be better."

Shush little crazy writer . . . it's grown-up time.

So I took all that bottled up anxiety/energy/whatever and made a mock-up cover image.

Looks cool. She liked it. That was a week ago.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

 That's not her pace making that noise, that's my inner nine-year-old.

My inner grown-up sounds a lot like my father.

He says "Go clean your room . . . have a piece of fruit."

See, while the entire universe is blazing through space at nearly the speed of light, everything's getting so fast that I could send a message that could circumnaviagte the globe quicker than sipping my Disneyland Tea, there are algorithms that can literally predict the future of things . . .

 . . . the publishing industry hasn't had a major upgrade since Guttenburgh.

The printing press guy . . . not the Three Men and a Baby guy.

Though, now I have a weird hankering for a Police Academy movie.

But seriously . . . the publishing industry WILL . . . NOT . . . BE . . . RUSHED!

There are 23 chapters, 213 pages, over 1,000 paragraphs, 8,000 sentences, AND 67,243 words all to pour over and think about.

I capitalized AND because they all have to work together. It's not just the 67,243 words that need combing through. There's content, pacing, continuity to deal with first. Then there's consistency; did I spell someone's name the same way throughout? Did I describe a couch as green in the beginning and then describe it as blue near the end? There's also grammer consistency.

That one's gonna take some time.

I have no consistency.

Like . . . none.

Like . . . . at all.

Poor Editorial Staff.

And I write in vernacular for . . . like . . . 90% of the book.

That means I tried to write the way people talk.

The way millennials talk.

Like um er totally like the way millennials talk.

It's gonna give a well mannered editor at least two or three gray hairs. I did apologize in advance.

I'm nice that way.

Anyway . . . that was a week ago and I've heard nothing since.

Which ABSOLUTELY does NOT mean I am unimportant. See . . . she has to read the entire book cover to cover, make an entire legal yellow pad filled with notes.

Then she has to do the line editing (which means pouring over sentences), which I already promised wasn't going to be easy.

Then . . . she has to digitize all her corrections so that I can clearly see which portions she has changed.

Lastly she has to compose an intricate email filled with positive but firm language, stroke my ego while pointing out some unnacceptable amatuerish mistakes.

Then she has to explain to me what "Stet" means.

I'm ahead of her there . . . Stet is a way for me to tell her that I don't agree with her changes and to keep it the way it is.

Vonnegut said that "Stet" is the most important word in a writer's vocabulary.

I've never used it before, but I can see how it would come in handy, especially if you're Kurt Vonnegut.

I highly doubt I will use it at all. I am neither married to words or passages or any but the most central of characters, and let us be honest, after 8 drafts, there ain't much left for this playwrite to do but to let a director put the damn thing on stage.

Still . . . 

It's thumb twiddlin time for now, until whatever comes next, and if this were a story, and I was the editor, I would probably tell the author to cut this entire section and get to the action.

Like a car chase or a sex scene or a montage.

Maybe introduce a third pony.

wait . . . I have an idea!



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