I’ve always loved day/week in the life posts, and so as I mentioned over on Notes (which I’m still feeling out, but enjoying) during a moment of feeling overwhelmed I decided to write about how as a writer this was a very busy week for me — despite the fact I did no actual writing.
This is something you have to watch out for, because it can add up and lose you way more time than you have. But sometimes it’s all actual work that goes along with being a writer for a living and you just have to accept it, be the cranky that comes from needing to write words and not having the time, and get it done. (And, no, I do not write every day, except when I am writing every day.)
Some of this round is an artifact of playing catch-up mode after a month of hospital runs and lack of brain power for writing. All of which means I’m running a touch behind on my next manuscript deadline (due by the end of next month, and fingers crossed I’ll make it), and so I feel keenly the need to enter Hardcore Deadline Mode. To begin wording, above most else.
But first, I received copyedits earlier in April on The Frame-Up, my magic art heist novel out from Del Rey Books next spring. These were due back by 4/24 and I’m happy to say that I turned them back in today.
For those of you who are like, what are copyedits? How can I best explain what a copyeditor is…
A copyeditor is a magician — all editors are — but of a specific type.
The best know every grammar rule. They know how to improve writing by using them. They know a little bit about everything, a lot about some things, and how to find out about the rest. They also have an uncanny sense of what to double check, and a whole special Spidey sense for identifying continuity errors and those last little questions that need clearing up in the manuscript. They come in with their magnifying-glass brains after you and your editor — both of who have your hands in the book up to the eyeball and fix most things, but miss some others — finish the bulk of your work. They make sure the book is assembled properly and you haven’t accidentally broken something or repeated the same phrasing three times in a page. They make sure you don’t read like an idiot (as much as they can). Also, that the commas are right, because no matter how long I’ve been doing this job, the commas are mostly like rhythm notes to me, which they aren’t actually.
You learn new things from every copyeditor and this time I discovered I don’t know jackshit about was/were and the subjunctive. I believe this explanation was the first time in the ms. I added a note in reply to a query that said: “YOU ARE A GENIUS.” This was a very thorough and fabulous copyedit, which is a thing of beauty. When someone takes their time and care with your book, you must do it back — reviewing every change, answering every query, clarifying where needed. And adding a dedication and acknowledgments.
So this made up the bulk of my week, including an interlude where I had to re-find some of my research on late 1800s Paris to confirm and shift a few things.
Save for Tuesday, which was entirely eaten by meetings. Two were Lexington Writer’s Room-related, the nonprofit I co-founded and chair (we also have a Substack). Perhaps you’d say these weren’t writer-related things, but I think of the LWR as part of my paying-it-forward, mentoring-and-community creation and support for other writers, which is an important part of being a writer to me. We’re coming up on a significant annual fundraiser (or two — more to come on that) and so had to figure some things out. Another was with one of our close partners to see how I and we as the LWR could help with an upcoming writing conference.
Then that afternoon, I had a three-three hour brainstorming session with my writing partners Kami Garcia and Sam Humphries (we’ve been approving all sorts of exciting things for The Youngbloods — our Audible series coming VERY SOON!). We had a new idea recently and didn’t want to let it gallop away from us while we were still excited, so this was the second or third of several calls we’ll do to develop the idea into a proposal for another collaborative project. I sat on the porch while I did this. I had to miss another meeting with the BINC — the Book Industry Charitable Foundation — committee I volunteer on because of a conflict.
Friday, I got my hair done and did not a whole lot else other than read. (Jonathan Carroll’s Mr. Breakfast is one of his best, and I recommend it. And Alma Katsu’s Red London. Now I’m onto the new Alexis Hall. Reading is life.)
Today I finished up the rest of the copyedits. In honor of that, here’s The Frame-Up’s first sentence:
Dani was settled at a sticky back table in the empty dive bar, waiting, when the mark arrived.
Here’s hoping that would keep you reading.
During all this is regular life stuff, obvi, and dog walking, cat snuggles, email (always), and other routine work I do.
Today I also prepared to dive into Hardcore Deadline Mode on the first Wayward Sisters novel by moving the draft from Word back to Scrivener and calculating a rough daily wording estimate. Tomorrow I’ll go to the LWR to have a writing afternoon with some of our many new members and get to writing moar words.
That is the nonnegotiable part of the writing life, after all.
Questions? Comments? Conspiracy theories?
I don’t think AI could do any of this, by the way. More soon!
"the commas are mostly like rhythm notes to me" - SAME.
Oh, the first week of May looks like this for me. Between preparing for the Nebula conference by being a moderator Voice of Experience, filling out promotion slot applications that May Not Happen for various vendors (but still require the scheduling of price changes because acceptance in the promotion is not told until The Last Minute), doing said promotion, and discovering I need to record taglines and book links in two different forms for two different groups (ah, the Glamorous Life of An Indie Writer--NOT)...then there's the non-writing, community service work for my Soroptimist club which includes scheduling Zooms, preparing a donation request for approval by the club's Board (I am the chair of our Community Projects committee which hands out up to $1000 in grant requests for projects primarily benefiting women and girls), Zoom meeting for the Large Grant committee (hands out $5000 once a year to organizations doing projects that benefit women and girls, worthy projects that don't quite make the Large Grant cut are handed off to my committee), and...yeah. That first week of May is busy, and then the second week of May has the Nebulas as well as hosting a Zoom chat one night for the regional independent writers' association that I am on the board of...normally my life isn't that hectic, but this May....