Let’s Talk Process: Final Edits
I learned a lesson this week.
Always order a print proof and always do your final edits using that print proof.
I know. I know you’re tired. I know that your head is going to explode if you look at any of those words one more time. I know you’re ready for this thing you made to be out in the world and it’s been months and you’re desperate to start something new or, for fuck’s sake, take a break.
I thought I was done. I thought it was all good etc, etc idiom, clichè.
So wrong. So, so wrong.
And I am so lucky I have Jenny to educate me on the finer points of publication. Bluntly when my skull has thickened into a protective shell.
I was done. So done. The plan was to take a quick spin through the book for anything glaring, for formatting errors, and let it go. No, Jenny insisted. You through it. All of it. You have to go through it.
She’s my editor and my friend, and far more experienced than I am in the way of these things. Thus, I did as was recommended. Reluctantly. I would have kicked and screamed if I’d had the energy.
There were some formatting errors. Some auto-correct flubs, wrong words, punctuation mistakes. Those fucking em-dash close-quote bitches.
Some
A five page list of some.
Five. Pages.
Fine. That’s not some. It’s a lot.
I edited Hero Handlers on screen methodically, carefully, thoroughly, and still missed five pages of copy edits.
There’s something about the actual, physical book format that is superior for editing purposes, over even normal printed pages. Maybe it’s because there’s something special about holding your own book in your hands, something that moves you past regular OCD and into a zone of absolute focus. The tunnel vision not of perfectionism, but of something more. Something more Zen.
The amorphous something that makes remakes a writer into an author.
A sense of pride and ownership that comes from physical contact with something you’re created from nothing. Something you’re about to release into the world for others to (I hope, crap, I hope) enjoy.
Or maybe it’s just One Of Those Things. I like explanations. I seek them out with terrier-tenacity. But maybe this is a magical, creative Thing that supernovas if you look at it too hard.
Either way, order that print proof. Go through it. You can do it. It might feel as though you’re dying, but it won’t actually kill you. Probably. Ignore the complete dissolution of self-confidence and “my god, what have I done” that comes with the end of the thing and tear that sucker yet another new one.
And make sure you send Jenny a thank you note.
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