Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

How many times shall I read thee? Let me count the ways. Again.

Minor advice column for writers this week. Lessons learned from my own repeated experience as a fellow traveller in the writing trenches.  

Copy editing progress continues. Depending on how I measure it I am 27% or 35% of the way through the copy edit. No graphic representation, as usual. I like what I’m seeing. Of course I have realized that once the copy edit is complete, I’m going to read the book aloud to myself, as that technique captures words that are still randomly missing, or nonsense transpositions courtesy of the autocorrect demons. Why do they sometimes think ‘had’ and ‘and’ are interchangeable? It totally destroys meaning! (Ha! That happened as I typed this! Word 2007 for the win.)

Anyway, I will have to endure my own mellifluous tones for 80K words, but it really does catch a ton (okay, by now it is really only a handful, but it feels like a ton!) of detail errors you would swear upon any relative’s grave could not possibly be there after all the work you’ve put in. I mean I have at a conservative estimate by now planned it, written the first draft, read it with minor fixes, edited and revised the first draft, read that over with more fixes, let betas at it, received their feedback and incorporated what I deigned to agree with (just being honest—and admitting I did agree with a lot. So grateful for betas!), read it over again with inevitable fixes, then a full edit again, and now am copy editing. Ahead lies a vocal read through, a proofing read, and then a post proofing read, then formatting and a post formatting read through.

And for some writers that is barely scratching the surface of the number of revisions they go through.

I have written versions of this post before. I have said this before. Posts about picking up dust with chopsticks and going snow blind come to mind. I’m not going to link them, because although I have to masochistically reread my own work what feels like a thousand times, I don’t need to inflict déjà vu of the blog on you, my faithful readers! (I know, I already have, hey ho. But if you are interested in seeing my former oddly familiar takes go search the archives—you might find something else of interest!)

It just cannot be emphasized enough to new writers: be prepared to read your story over and over until the words swim before your eyes and you drown in them. This is why you need to both take breaks, and have others read your words for you sometimes, to catch what you miss. That is mental health self-care for writers. Your work will not be radically transformed into something alien just because someone suggested switching subject/object somewhere for clarity. Yes, you are an immortal stylist, but sometimes clarity is best. Roll with it, my writerly chums and pals.

Having said that, I am inflicting more work on myself, just because. I could have a program read my book to me in its robotic tones to catch missing words/crappy constructions, but I know I’d zone out listening no matter how odd and stilted the delivery would be. Better for me personally to read the book aloud in short chapter bursts while I can stay focused, stop, then start the re-read one chapter before I ended, because I always get secretly punchy before I admit I’ve gotten punchy to myself.

And this is why my final proof is not by me. This time. I might be reading 4 words in a sentence by then, so familiar I am with the text.

But let’s be honest, I’ll still read it again after that. But I will do my damnedest not to start futzing with the text.

Because if I do, I’ll have to wait for some kind reader out there to let me know a crucial sentence has the word ‘to’ in it, when ‘that’ would make more sense. Yes, that really happened. Why? I effed around and edited after all the proofing was done and did not have an external reader check my work that one last time. I skipped a final step, so certain I was that I had quadrupled checked everything, when in my terminal fiddling with the text I’d introduced that error. When it was pointed out I instantly knew what and how it had happened. (In my defense, that page had been so awkward prior to the changes: the phrasing was adequate, but just off. So from my crazed point of view it needed those last changes, but it also needed someone else to check it before publishing, and find that last bony relic of the previous iteration peeking through the flesh of the new version, attracting all sorts of unwanted and painful attention.) Don’t be that guy.

Really, don’t be that guy.

Until next week, my friends!