I fretted, while I waited for Editor Sandra’s first round of comments on The Pattern Scars. Of course I did: I fret at a professional level, about a wide variety of things – and this particular thing was more frettable-over than most. All these years (well, six) without an editor; all these years (two) of rejections by agents, including my own: perhaps, I thought as I waited, I’m not up to the whole pro author experience any more. Perhaps my skin, which thickened during the editing of my two other books, has turned to that transparent, soft rice paper that holds a cold Vietnamese spring roll together until you bite into it.
Sandra’s comments on the first third of the book came in just as the TSFW* and I were preparing to go out for dinner. I proceeded to do two things I’d never done before: I took my tiny perfect MacBook Air with me on the subway, and I began responding to Sandra’s edits using track changes. The last time I worked with an editor on a manuscript, said manuscript was couriered between us in impressively bulky hard copy, covered in pencil scribbles and bristling with yellow Post-It Notes. Last time my working space was a couch and the floor in front of it, and all surfaces (including mine) got covered in paper and eraser shavings and coffee mug rings.
This time I sat on the subway and right-clicked my way through the changes. “Accepts”, mostly – because Sandra’s suggestions and comments were almost invariably right. Some were pretty funny, too. I sat and I clicked, or I read and mulled a bit and moved on, saving the bigger changes for the next time – which turned out to be a sunny late afternoon at a pub. And then there was the front porch, surrounded by roses. And the bed, surrounded by cats.
A laptop and track changes – and lo, the edits are done, without a single bout of fret. This book is out of my hands. People will be reading it, soon. Reviewing it. My skin may yet prove to be rice paper – and I can’t wait to find out.
*Tall Science Fiction Writer. I’m still trying to come up with an acronym that actually works.
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