Edits! More Edits!

There's nothing quite like your book showing up on the doorstep, all marked up with edits. Like most things in publishing it is a strange cocktail of feelings.

At this point it kinda feels like a countdown—one more task closer to that publication date. Right now my book being "out there" still feels pretty far away, but I hear stuff speeds up the closer you get.

It's weird, this post-book-deal thing. I don't think I was really prepared for the...waiting. Ironic, I know. I've done a lot of waiting! But I guess I just pictured all that "fun publishing stuff" happening fairly soon—you know, the new stuff like a cover or blurbs or selling foreign and what not—when really there's this whole editing pipeline you have to go through first. And frankly, that editing pipeline is a lot like what I've been doing for my crit partners and my agents for the last few years, except with even higher stakes.

Maybe that's why it still doesn't quite feel real yet. I don't know. It's kind of like watching a picture develop. The image of me as Author Person is slowly showing up on the paper, and I'm squinting to try and make out what I (and my work) looks like. Except I still can't quite see it. The darkest spots are coming in. There's certainly something there, but I still have to wait to see the whole picture.

I really should be better at waiting by now!

Anyway, I am excited for these edits! Excited to be making some kind of progress. I am hoping it'll help me see yet another facet of this developing picture.