electric mist

notes

The part of the writing process that I think I have been most looking forward to, believe it or not, was getting the notes from my wonderful editor. I know that makes me weird, but I love the editing process. I love seeing how someone else has read the material, what resonated with them, what didn't, and why. Getting that sort of feedback teaches me more, faster, than any sort of coursework ever did, because it's personal to me, to what I've written, and it shows me how well I accomplished what I set out to do, and where I can improve.

And frankly, the goal is to always improve. I love this first book, and I'm happy with it. (A little tired of reading it, and sometimes that makes it hard to really focus on the page because I know it so well, already, that I can end up skimming over something I should be reading more critcially.) But as much as I love the first book, I feel like I've already learned a lot of things which are helping make the second book much better. I now have the chance to apply some of that back to book one as I go through the notes from the editor.

When I called my agent after receiving the notes, I think she was surprised by my excitement and enthusiasm. First of all, the notes are terrific. They're small, nuance sort of things, no major changes. Yet, they are very smart and elegant. My agent told me that a lot of first time novelists feel real despair when they first get notes back from an editor, because no matter how small the notes are, the fact that there are notes in or throughout their manuscript despresses them. Writers would love to write the perfect book and have everyone fall all over themselves proclaiming its perfection, of course, but that just isn't ever going to happen. I know a few writers who've had their editors tell them their book has zero notes (not even grammatical), and honestly, that would make me a nervous wreck. I know I am not a perfect writer, and I truly love love love the fact that I have someone in my corner who is very vested in making this the best book it can be. It's important to her, and I truly feel like she's got my back. I'd much rather know someone went through it and told me the honest truth and helped me make it better so that when it does get to reviewers, I can feel I am honestly giving them my best effort. (And I'm not writing all of this just because my wonderful editor reads the blog. Hi Nichole! I am truly that happy with the process.)

Part of my perspective about editing comes from my experience at having edited a small regional magazine for a year. I'd recruit writers occasionally from the MFA program at the local universities to try to raise our caliber of writing, and I'd get articles in which ended up needing way more work than I would have expected from that group of people. My goal was to make sure they didn't embarrass themselves or the magazine, and to do that, I had to edit them. The other reason I feel like I respond really well to notes is that I have lived through getting notes on screenplays for years. Notes on scripts tend to be brutal, because film is a collaborative medium, and everyone who reads wants to have some creative input. Like I said to my agent, "Notes on this book? A piece of cake. Notes on a script would have been, 'Yeah, we LOVE it, love it, love the girl, think she's amazing, truly, we love her. Can you make her a horse?'" I once got notes on a romantic comedy which were so brutal, I had people ask me if I had done something to the guy in a past life, and the really funny thing was, had I actually done the notes, it would have turned the romantic comedy into a very bloody thriller. That happens a lot in the script world (which is why so many movies have huge steaming plot holes or character flaws in them). Everyone has their own idea of what the film should ultimately be, and they want to steer it toward their vision. It routinely is notr about the quality of the actual writing... because audiences don't sit in the theater and look up at the screen and read the script. The script is a blueprint. And if you were building a house, you are going to want that blueprint tailored to your tastes. Happily, in the book world, it is very different, very respectful of the material. The point is the writing and the voice and I cannot say how happy I am that I made the switch. I couldn't fathom ever going back and writing scripts again.

There's another meta sort of reason, though, that I've been looking foward to getting the notes, and that is because it makes the publishing process more official and real to me. Sure, I've cashed the check and I have the contract, but since I'd sold the book based on a partial, and not the full manuscript, I spent several months after cashing said check just finishing the book. As a result, there was this whole lack of direct interaction with the publisher that made the process feel a little unreal. Now, though, I've got the tangible notes, I know what to do next, and it all feels very concrete and real and wonderful.

~*~

Expect a lot more writing-related entries for a while since that's my main focus. I'll still be writing the random observational posts on other topics, of course, both humorous and not, but the blog will probably lean heavily toward writing and publishing subjects.

Posted by toni at March 11, 2006 02:17 AM