Copyediting!

Posted on July 12, 2007

I got the manuscript for Evernight back from the copyeditors this week and have been proofing it in the evenings. Just got done about half an hour ago. And let me tell you something: I am so deeply, humbly grateful that I would run over to 55th St. and start hugging people at HarperCollins if it wouldn’t result in a restraining order.

I mean, I’m a pretty careful writer. I edit. And I re-edit. I research. I have grammar-sharp, plot-wise friends read my manuscript multiple times. I think of myself as creating a fairly clean product. And then the copyedit comes along to remind me, Hi, you know nothing.

The majority of the edits were style things; as a former journalist, I tend to write by AP style, which is not used in most fiction publishing. And some mistakes were the results of previous editing I’d done (moving the location of a scene and thinking I’d caught every later reference to the scene, but discovering I’d missed one), which, although still my error, I don’t feel too bad about; this is the kind of thing you want a new set of eyes for.

But I got the title of an album wrong, and I own that album. There are other numbskull errors too. OK, in the grand scheme of things, not that many, but every single one thwacks me smack in my forehead and shakes me out of my complacency.

Stargazer will get a much tougher read from me — and no doubt copyediting will save my skin there, too —

To make a long story short: Thank God for copyeditors!

12 Responses to “Copyediting!”

    • admin

      Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. Which is not, as it turns out, Ella Wishes You a Swingin’ Christmas.

      • britlitfantwin

        I probably would have put the latter as well. Something about that apostrophe just makes it roll off the tongue. Thanks for indulging me.

  1. vaznetti

    Granted, I am a crappy proofreader, but my father and one of the members of my dissertation committee are both excellent proofreaders, and read through every word of my dissertation (as did a few other people). And yet even now, as I read through the chapters, I find errors. Missing commas! Formatting issues! I got someone’s name wrong!

  2. md1016

    Oh, babe! This is so incredubly exciting! I’m thrilled for you and proud of you. YAY YOU!