Editing and the Insane Writer

This morning, DH and I had to "bug out of our apartment because of bugs" as he told a co-worker. We just needed to be out for a couple of hours so we weren't accidentally poisoned along with the intentionally poisoned six-legged and eight-legged critters. So we packed up our respective materials and headed to Panera's for breakfast.

Except as we headed for the car, DH looked at me askance and said, "Where's your laptop?"

"In the apartment."

"Won't you need it to work?"

"No, I'm editing a manuscript." I blew his mind because I took--wait for it--PAPER!

You see, I printed out the files for the first five Bloodlines books back in 2013. The intent was to go through them in preparation for the paper version and fix the typos that were missed in the original pre-publication editing passes because yes, even editors miss shit. I take missing shit as a compliment because more than one of them has mentioned that they get caught up in the story and forget they are supposed to be looking for mistakes. And...

Well, as you all know, a lot of shit happened between the summer of 2013 and now. I'm slowly but surely picking up the pieces I dropped with the house drama and family drama.

Not to mention, I find myself looking back through the first five books while writing Zombie Goddess (which, by the way, crossed the 42K mark on Thursday) because I can't remember shit. Yes, I'm putting together a series bible as I go so I won't have to deal with this on the last three books.

Anyway, I brought the first eleven chapters of Blood Sacrifice with me. I'm sitting in the booth, laughing at some parts, irritated with myself at others, but even I, who is supposed to be looking for typos, am getting caught up in the story again.

Like someone else wrote it. Not me.

And I'm wondering if I'm crazy and if I actually have a split personality.

Maybe I do.

Or maybe I offer a bounty to readers who find typos.

Editing Nightmares when You're an Indie

First of all, let me say I wouldn't trade being an indie for anything. Nor do I hate editing per se. But like everything in life, there are times when certain bugs crawl up your butt, and they are itchy and scratchy and drive you insane.

The zombie meme that indies don't edit drives me insane. We do edit.

I've never needed an developmental editor. These are the folks who tell you how to write the story. Personally, I've never understood why I'd need someone tell me how to write a story, but I'm not going to criticize people who need them.

Also, I can do my own copyediting. That's making sure I haven't accidentally changed a character's eye color or name. Or something even more stupid.

But when it comes to line-editing (aka proofreading)...ARGH!

By no means am I perfect. I admit I have a tendency to leave out articles and prepositions while writing. This usually means I add 10-15K words to my manuscripts during my first line-editing pass.

After I'd made my passes, I had five separate people line-edit Blood Magick, plus two beta readers and my hubby go through the damn manuscript. You'd think that nine people, with three of those nine being industry professional editors and another three being trad-pubbed writers, would find all the typos.

Nope.

Typos still made it into the e-book version. Some sweet, clear-eyed readers pointed out a handful of them. I fixed the manuscript. Uploaded it.

And still didn't catch a few. Earlier this year, I went going through the manuscript again in preparation for sending to a formatter. Checked the e-version. Found a couple more. My lovely formatter fixed the e-version. Then she sent me the print version for proofing. And guess what?

Yep, still found another one.

So, anyway, I'll start copy-editing A Question of Balance in a week or so. In the meantime, I'll be going through Amish, Vamps & Thieves before its formatting is updated. Hopefully, it won't take an additional nine people and twenty passes to get the manuscript clean.

Lessons Learned Part 7 - Double-check Your Shit

Currently (Re)Reading - Gotcha! by Christie Craig (E-book)

A lot of published folk I know are putting out their backlists.  The problem for a lot of them is that they don't have a digital copy.  So they're having to scan their old typewritten manuscripts or paperback copies, and in a lot of cases, they need new artwork because of licensing issues concerning the original covers.  What I'm about to say applies to both new authors and old:

(1)  There's no such thing as a perfect OCR program (at least not yet).

(a) For those who aren't computer geeks, OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition.  Most OCR scanners 'read' each line of text and tries to translate the shapes it 'sees' into a corresponding alphanumeric character in a word processing program.  If the OCR is missing some 'training', it may translate 'K'ehleyr the Klingon' into 'Cpl. Klinger'.

ALWAYS proof-read your text after a scan!  In fact, have a couple of people put eyeballs to the novel.  Then you won't be mocked on various blogs where the bloggers get a thrill out of trashing anyone self-publishing.

(b) Depending on the OCR program, the file may go through a couple of conversions before it gets to your preferred word processing format.  This means you could have invisible formatting characters totally fucking up your file.  I know this sounds like extra work, but I highly recommend using Smashwords founder Mark Coker's nuclear option to make sure you have a clean file.  Yes, it's a pain in the ass to reset indents and re-italicize words, but it beats smacking your head against the wall trying to fix formatting errors on your e-book.

(2) Don't assume public domain art is actually in the public domain.

Sorry to bust your fuzzy bubbles, but people lie on the internet.  ALWAYS double-check rights to a particular piece of art.  An acquaintance got a cease and desist letter from the owner of a particular painting after she used a JPG from a public domain site.  Even better, pay the couple of dollars to license photos or art from a reputable company.  It'll save your ass.

Anybody else have a double-check suggestion?

Always Double-Check Your Work

Currently reading - Born of Fire by Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Review your answers before turning in your test." Remember that sage piece of advice from a multitude of teachers?

Same goes for when you get the request for a full or a partial. And yes, I've been double-checking my work for the last three days after receiving a request for a full from someone I'd love to work with in the industry. I've found typos the crit partners, beta readers and I all missed in numerous passes over this manuscript. I've also smoothed out a few awkard phrasings. I want this to be the best damn thing on this editor's desk when I send it.

And I think that's where a lot of newbies trip up. An agent or editor is not going to dock your grade for handing in your homework late. Trust me if they are, that's not someone you probably want to work with. On the other hand, I'm not waiting months and months before I send it in because I want the request still fresh in the editor's mind.

So take a day (or three depending on your life), and look over your manuscript one last time before hitting 'SEND'. You'll be glad you did.