Mussorgsky Mondays – Update on The Mussorgsky Riddle, and a bit on editing…
Hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day today. It is a time of reflection, so reflect on the many men and women in uniform who have sacrificed so that we can live in such a great country, but don’t let the naysayers get you down about enjoying time with your family and friends. Americans work far to hard. Enjoy the day. Me, I’m about to go hike Crowder’s Mountain – only 20% chance of rain, so we’ll see what happens…
On to the update.
On February 28th, 2014, Curiosity Quills Press, a smaller publishing house out of Leesburg, VA, expressed interest in publishing The Mussorgsky Riddle and by mid March, my agent and I had negotiated the various contract aspects and it was all official. Many of you may be wondering what I’ve been doing since.
First, Lisa Gus, the acquisitions editor and co-owner of CQ Press, had about 10 plot points that she wanted me to massage out in the story. Some of these were easy and some were a bit more work. All in all, however, even the change that seemed the hardest, the change that seemed to threaten the nice bow I had tied on the end of the story, improved the story. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when someone points out a problem in your story, they may not be technically “right” but just the fact that something in the story “tripped” them means that someone else is going to “trip” too. Therefore, that’s the section of story carpet that needs to be tacked down more carefully. Don’t want our readers to fall and hurt themselves, now do we. All of Lisa’s suggestions at the very least clarified the story, and the two big changes at the end actually revealed to me that there was more layer to the onion I hadn’t considered. My lesson? Even when the suggested change seems like it’s painful and wrong, look for a way to use the suggestion to improve your story.
Once Lisa had okayed the story, I was transitioned to my actual editor for the project, Sharon Pickrel, who did a fantastic job. She did a story pass in record time and I got those changes back to her. Then she did a grammar pass, again in record time. Then she did a third pass, sort of a pre-proofreading, and I got all those changes back to her last night. Hopefully this is the “final” edit, though it does go before proofreaders now to look for typos after which I will get one more look at the content to ensure I’m happy with everything. What I learned during this step is that the better self-edited your book is before it goes to the editor, the better off you are. Sharon told me multiple times how “clean” a manuscript I’d sent, and still there were MANY things that needed to be fixed. So, to all you writers out there: go find those adverbs and slay them, go make sure your commas have a degree from Oxford (if appropriate), and work on getting rid of filtering, etc. (look it up) Read widely from blogs and websites that teach how to self-edit and GET IT DONE. In the end, this is your project.
What’s next? The manuscript has been sent back to CQ and after a pass by the proofreaders, they start on cover design, interior layout, pricing, and other aspects of bringing this book to life. We don’t have a release date as yet, but I’m hoping that we have this one out before Christmas for gifts, stocking stuffers, and the like, but mostly, as a great Christmas gift to me. It’s been my dream for a LONG time to hold a book I wrote in my hands, and it looks like that dream is about to come true. More updates as we get closer, but for now I will leave you to your barbecues, your swimming pools, and your remembrances of our fallen heroes. Happy Memorial Day, everyone.
Darin
