It is done, therefore it is good

My editor's notes for STORMDANCER materialized in my grimy little inbox on March 8, 2011, about six weeks after my deal got finalized. After spending a few days getting my head around said notes and some very pleasant back and forth (ie, me stamping my foot like a primadonna and my editors laughing at my antics) I duct-taped my hands to the keyboard, kissed my wife goodbye and started revisions.

There was a towering shitload quite a bit of work to get done. Not so much "changes" as "augmentation". My eds wanted MORE –world building, dreaded exposition, detail, detail, detail. The good news was that (after my primadonna act) I wasn't being asked to chop much of anything. The bad news was chopping words takes a lot less time than writing new ones.

I was forced to sit down and think about my world on a micro level. To codify aspects that I'd only really glossed over. To draw maps, write mythology, create history thousands of years before the events in my book. For a horrible, tragic nerd like me, it was about the most fun I could have with pants on. But it takes a long fucking time. Made even longer by the fact that my beloved  live-in-editor wife A-bomb is far smarter than me, and can spot flaws in my feeble logic from a thousand yards away.

But I'm very happy to report that it's now done. About 30,000 new words. If the world of STORMDANCER was an oil painting in my head before, it's now a high-def 72 inch plasma screen image. Filthy and wretched and thoroughly beautiful. The book is so much better than it was before. So, a public shout-out to my awesome editors, Pete Wolverton at St Martins and Julie Crisp at TorUK.

You guys frackin' rule.

(and now, I'm off to play Dragon Age 2 while I wait for the line-by-lines )