Drafts

Above:

three years of work

six drafts

of one book:

The Great Unexpected

(due out 4 September)

By the time

I reach this phase

it's a bit like having been pregnant

for ten months

maybe eleven

and I am thinking

I did the best I could do

I love it

but

GET IT OUTTA HERE!

xx

Middles

Sometimes 

you have to rip out

big chunks

of the story

in order to

fix

lumpy, bumpy bits.

(Meanwhile, this is what our driveway looks like today.)

Revisions, Copy-Editing and all that Jazz

A Bigga Mess

Closing in on last tweaks before the book is set in galleys (pages that look like book pages.) Bigga mess on desk.  It has gone something like this, over the past two years:

Write several drafts, submit to editor, receive feedback; revise, resubmit, feedback, tweaking. Ms. 'approved' and goes to copy editor and then comes back to me with questions. Fix it, resubmit, a few more tweaks, off it goes again to be set in galleys.

[Meanwhile:  begin first draft of next book.]

Meanwhile:  talks with editor regarding cover art and interior art  (that begins shortly after editor first sees manuscript, and is ongoing until book is ready for publication.)

Next: first-pass galleys will arrive in a month or two and we'll all (me, editor, etc.) proofread.  Tweak. Fix.

While we're doing that, marketing and publicity and sales departments are ramping up with their expertise.

Then:  second-pass galleys arrive; proofread, tweak, fix.  

[Meanwhile: continue writing drafts of next book.]

Sometimes another final pass (of first book) comes to me.  

Final art arrives. 

Advance review copies are printed (up to four or five months in advance of publication).

[Finish next book drafts; submit to editor; receive feedback; revise .  . .]

About eleven months from now:  publication day of the book that's the bigga mess on desk above.

Ta da!

Soon I will disclose the . . . title.

Revision Done (Maybe)

This is the latest revision (post editorial comments), ready to go back to my editor. Many pages have small changes; the yellow pages are new scenes.  Most of the changes came in the second half of the book, tweaking characters and plot points, uncovering new connections. Revisions could go on endlessly--no matter how many times you read something, you can always find something to tweak, but at some point you have to let go of it.

On Sunday, I loved it. On Monday, I hated it. On Tuesday, I kissed it.

And now, a reward--off to empty my brain:

'Lost' Dreams

When I'm in the middle of a near-final manuscript revision, I often have 'lost' dreams: either I am lost in a house or a city, or my purse or wallet is lost.  I either can't find my way out (of a house or city) or I can't prove who I am (purse/wallet = have proof of identity).

In the houses, rooms lead to other rooms, hallways wrap around in a maze, I can't get back to where I started, and I don't know how to exit.  This seems a pretty transparent dream of where my mind is in the revision process!

The lost wallet and purse dreams are somehow tied up with my identity as a writer vs. my 'other' lives as wife, mother, friend, sister, etc. Who am I? How am I going to 'prove' it?

I know, though, that I will eventually find my way through the manuscript and my various selves will not be lobbying for attention . . . and the 'lost' dreams will subside.

Revising Dresses

Often when I'm either writing or revising a book, I dream of dresses. In the dream, I'll be looking for 'the right dress' and I'll discover–around a corner or in a back room–a cache of beautiful dresses in rich, rare fabrics and unusual design–nothing outlandish but exactly what I am looking for: something classic and yet different from all the other many look-alike dresses I've encountered.

I used to awake from these dreams wishing I could create dresses like those, and one day I realized I had already created the dresses, in the dream(s). Ta da!


I have come to recognize that these dreams are transparent reflections of my dreams for the book: I'm trying to write something beautiful, something classic and yet different from all the other books out there. Something that fits me.


The above sketch, which doesn't do justice to the dresses I 'saw,' is from a dream two nights ago. In the dream, I 'found' them in a back room of a small boutique. They were of the softest, combed cotton, summery and light. The front had two longer panels on the sides and a shorter panel in the front. There were two dresses: one in faded denim blue with a narrow khaki stripe, and the other in cream with tiny brown flowers sprinkled across the field of cream.

Try as I might, the sketches never do justice to the visions in the dreams, just as perhaps my books never do justice to the visions I have of them in my head.

But if I keep track of all these dresses, maybe one day I'll have enough for a collection! Ho!

Beach Revisions

Time: noon today.  Place: Oak Island, NC.  Temperature: 70.  Activity: Revising.

Today I was working on revisions.  At the beach.  Truly.  Received long, eloquent editorial letter yesterday, with astute observations and questions on the work-in-progress.  The questions are complicated and not easy to resolve, but if resolved, they will make the book stronger. And so today, with the questions in mind, I walked the beach. And sat. And walked. And sat. And thought.

The value of thinking/gazing time is enormous. It's an essential part of writing, and it is why many writers take on that glazed, daft look: they are off in the world of the book, resolving problems, even when they are not at the computer/typewriter/paper--maybe especially when they are not at the computer/typewriter/paper.

These are the times when I put the phone in the fridge, the milk in the oven, keys in the freezer. It is hard to live in two worlds at once, mm?