Conversations With My Editor

As specific dates come nearer–like submission date, publication date, forgot-to-buy-my-brother-in-law-a Christmas-present date–writers can get a little clingy. And editors are there to talk them down off the ledge. Or maybe drive them over it.

Me: The beta readers are trying to kill me.

Editor: All the best ones do.

Me: Hahaha. I’m worried, after all the hype, that I’ll get their notes back and I’ll be all, “OMG, I suck!”

Me: And the Christmas story isn’t co-operating. Maybe it was too big a change in mood?*

Editor: You’re a writer. Writers do that. And then their editors remind them that they’re wrong.

Editor: Could write a Christmas cannibal drabble to bridge the gap.

*The change in mood is from Flesh Market, which is dark and violent, to a Christmas stripper getting snowbound with a slightly innocent client on Christmas Day.

Filed under: Conversations With My Editor Tagged: editing, panic, stress, writing