Updates

Finished the back-and-forthing on Shadow Spy’s Wife and began the final read-through. If I do 10 chapters a day, I can finish in 7 days. After day 1: I’m on track! Because I got a grant to write this book, I’m using some of the money to get a professional edit, and about 9 months ago I booked it for next week. I think I’ll be ready to hand it over.

Then I have to get back to editing clients. Only one contacted me so far this week, but I have 4 projects that will all start this month. I like to focus on one at a time, two at most, but people who missed deadlines in the fall are telling me they’ll be ready for January. My first priority is to the people I scheduled for January, of course, but I still feel pressure (from myself, mind) to give all of them a reasonable turn-around. So, it will be good to have my novel in someone else’s hands for a couple of weeks.

In addition, I’m teaching 2 courses–again, I usually only teach one–and both are new to me, courses I haven’t taught before, so that means more prep. And I agreed to judge an award. Yikes. January will be interesting.

This week I got through the critiques for The Shadow Spy’s Wife, including all the track changes and either dealing with comments or putting them into a document for larger revisions–organized with the comments framed in the positive (what I can do, rather than what’s not working) and redundancies cut. I’ve done the recommended interleaving of stories and am just starting to put the notes for necessary changes into the scene in which I need to make that change. 

Got my critiques for The Shadow Spy’s Wife on Wednesday, and have been organizing the comments (frame positively, cut the ones I won’t use, organize according to the TOC for specific places to add or modify) and the track changes. It’s been very positive: I’ve received quite a bit of positive feedback, and the changes suggested are all very do-able. So, it’s going well, despite the fact that Christmas is coming (read: not as much time to work).

Got the novel in to the publisher! I’m happy with the draft–we’ll see what the editor says. Right now I’m hoping to get edits back sometime in January or February.

I’m one of three editors for Life Beyond Us, scheduled to come out from Laksa Media and the European Astrobiological Association in September, and I have 8 stories to look at so far (just got them last week), so that’s next. I’m really looking forward to them; only two came from slush (and I love both of them), but the rest were all by invitation from big names, so I expect the editorial process to be delightful.

I wanted to have my novel in to my publisher on Thursday but am still finishing the final read-through. It’s going great (only changing a few words here and there, but they are words that need changing), but I haven’t been able to put in the hours. On Wednesday, a family member was admitted to hospital and it looks like they’re doing surgery soon. But between hospital visits and supporting family, it’s been busy.