Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Damn Saun

I've had a crazy week. How's yours been?

My INVINCIBLE SUMMER edits are due to arrive TOMORROW! So if you have any questions about what the editing-for-an-editor process is like, this is the week to throw them at me! Get on it!

10 comments:

~Jamie said...

is it scary? :)

Amy Lukavics said...

Do you like editing or does it make you feel overwhelmed and puketastic?

seeyouupside said...

What Jamie and Amy said.

hannah moskowitz said...

Haha, yes, it's scary, but generally I absolutely love it. My editor's a genius, and her suggestions always make me slap my head forehead and feel stupid (like--I can cut this whole page? there's nothing important on this WHOLE PAGE? jesus, there's not one important thing on this whole page...) and they make the book so much better. So yeah, I'm psyched to get them.

Steve MC said...

I can cut this whole page?

Ooh, that's a good feeling. Like tossing a big rock out of your backpack 'cause it's not a cool fossil after all, but just a hunk of mud.

Meghan Ward said...

I would love to have a fabulous editor telling me what to keep and what to cut! Crossing my fingers that they arrive tomorrow!

Cheyanne said...

Have you ever disagreed with an edit?

Do your edits ever have small things like "Change this word to a better word" or, "This metaphor sucks?"

How long does it take you to fix all of the edits?


<3 Good luck with the edits!

hannah moskowitz said...

Cheyanne--I've totally disagreed with some, and sometimes I contest it and sometimes I don't. One of my very favorite paragraphs got cut from Break. I didn't fight it because it wasn't a necessary paragraph, and the flow *was* better without it, but...damn I miss that paragraph.

For the first round of edits, it's generally a lot less of changing words around and more of "This conversation is so boring. Make it about something else." (There was a lot of that in BREAK. That's how the whole Charlotte-being-a-singer thing came about, actually; Jonah and Charlotte needed SOMETHING to talk about besides what was going on in Jonah's homelife.) For those edits, as long as you can find a way to fix the problem your editor flagged, it's generally okay if you don't do exactly the edit she suggested. And if it's not okay, she'll tell you.

Copyedits are where a lot of words get fixed, and those are pretty easy to object to, because you can just write STET on your manuscript and tadaaa, it doesn't get changed. But generally the stuff that you get fixed is the stuff you want to get fixed--changing your "Seven-Elevens" to "7-Elevens" or making the spelling of a character's name consistent through the book.

Robby said...

I just thought I'd let you know that I just finished Break and can honestly say that I am madly in love with you.

hannah moskowitz said...

Robby. It is mutual.