Friday Feature Editing Tornado Cleanup
We have recently discovered that editing a book is a lot like cleaning up after a tornado.
“A tornado?” you ask. “Why would you say that? My book editing isn’t as bad as a tornado!”
Here’s how we reached such a conclusion.
This spring our lake cottage, where we revised and edited our newest book, Ghosts and Gardenias, was hit by a tornado. While we were one of the luckier tornado victims, the F3 winds that hit full force only 20 feet across the water channel from us left devastation and house parts scattered everywhere. Homes were tipped over, blow off their foundations into other homes, roofs and siding were ripped off, and one home was picked up and tossed onto the road. Our patio door exploded, from the inside out, onto our patio, as did the patio doors and windows of many of the area homes.
The first day we came up after the tornado the paved areas surrounding our house glittered in the sun like someone had tossed thousands of diamonds on the ground. Catherine donned her sturdy work boots, grabbed a broom (which we had fortuitously brought with us, since ours had blown away) and she began sweeping. Donald began covering the missing patio door and places where we no longer had siding with tarps.
For eight hours that first day, fueled by anxiety and panic-driven adrenaline, Catherine swept up mounds of granulated safety glass. Each time she’d get a pile deposited into the trash can she’d look back at the cleared area and see more glittering bits on the ground. No matter how many times she swept, whenever she circled what she thought was a cleaned area, more glass appeared. If she’d had a penny for every piece of glass she put into the trash she’d have been a billionaire.
Two months have passed since the tornado hit and Catherine began sweeping the pavement around our cottage, and we are still finding, and sweeping up, bits of glass whenever the sunlight hits the ground. The same thing happens with editing. If you constantly inspect your manuscript something new will always come to light. It may be a word or some punctuation you missed, or perhaps it’s a phrase that doesn’t seem right now. No matter what imperfection you see, or think you see, there comes a time to let go. If you don’t your book may never see publication.
Like the bits of glass we keep finding on, or in, the cracks of the pavement, editing is really never finished. Whether we are sweeping glass or editing our books to death, at some point we just have to decide we’ve done all we can, let go, and enjoy the fruit of our labors.
As we continue to clean up after the tornado that damaged our lake writing cottage we hope you’ll enjoy this excerpt from Ghosts and Gardenias, available to download from Amazon. With any luck we’ll be back to writing the next book in the series very soon.
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Susan longed to feel the antique silk touching her body. She flipped her long hair behind her shoulders, then held the dress to her chest measuring the tiny waist to her own. The dress might fit, at least for as long as she could hold her breath.
The gardenia scent grew stronger. Susan twirled around to face the cheval mirror, the dress still held to her. The last rays of the evening sun, coming through a rip in the attic window curtain, glinted off the mirror, blinding her for a moment. She touched the glass, gasping when her hands met the ice-cold edge. Rubbing the goose bumps on her arms she took two steps backward.
Her reflection, misty and spotted by the mirror’s worn silver backing, stared at her. When she stepped closer to the mirror the image blurred even more. She blinked, trying to clear her vision.
As she reached for the mirror, the gardenia scent changed from pungent to rotting. Another flash of light glinted off the mirror. Susan’s breath caught in her chest as she tried to sort out what she saw. Two overlaid images, both her yet different, stared from the silvered glass.
The more prominent image wore a pristine version of the dress Susan held to her body. No yellowed streaks marred the silk. The lace caplet billowed around her shoulders as though caught in a breeze stirred by a midsummer storm. Mahogany curls adorned her head like a crown—a sharp contrast to Susan’s long, flowing hair. A pair of green eyes, a near match to her emerald ones, stared out of the mirror.
Heart racing, Susan clutched the fabric in her fist. She moved to the right. The two images parted briefly then merged. She moved to the left. The same thing happened. Squeezing her eyes shut, Susan willed her pounding heart to slow and ignored her instinct to drop the dress and run.
A trick of the light. Nothing weird is happening. There’s a rational, logical explanation.
Gathering her courage, Susan fluttered her eyes open and peeked at the mirror. Her reflection had been replaced by the Victorian woman. A low moan rolled from the glass. Dropping the gown on the floor Susan skittered backward.
If this taste interests you in our newest book Ghosts and Gardenias is available now on Amazon, the first book in our Haunting of Garnoa Road Series.
