There is a sense of amazing satisfaction in pressing ‘send’ at the end of editing a novel.
A brief moment of freedom. Of satisfaction. Of success.
To have a novel you have written wing its way from your laptop to your agent’s and/or publisher’s inbox, knowing that you’ve done all you can to make it as good as you can, feels immensely freeing. It’s an amazing moment – and I love it.
I love that something I’ve dreamt up, planned, laboured over, hated, loved again, rewritten, added in last minute plot twists, edited, and allowed to invade my dreams and consume by walking hours for months, is over.
This week, I sent my first novel in a new series of murder mysteries off to my publisher. This was it’s third visit to her – she has already read it, sent it back for edits, approved those edits, and sent it back to me for some last minute tweaks. Those tweaks have been, well, tweaked, so, as stated, I’ve sent it back to her again.
Novel editing is a many layered onion. Each time a new layer of the process is peeled off – or should that be completed? – I get that same moment of realise – of freedom.
And it is only a moment, for this ‘freedom’ brings with it (for me at least) a side order of worry laden questions:
Is it good enough?
Will the reader guess who did it too soon?
Did I manage to limit the use of the word ‘nod’ enough? (An overuse of people nodding their heads in fiction really annoys me)
Will anyone read it?
Oh God – what if someone reads it?!
Will the copyeditor and proof reader find mistakes I’ve missed, my editor’s missed. and my agent’s missed? (Of course they will – we’re human beings!)
All of these questions – which take that sense of freedom I mentioned away quite quickly – are soon overtaken by events. One main event to be precise.
Needing to write the next novel. It all begins again with another amazing brief moment – the chance to dream up a whole 95,000 words of mystery and intrigue against a beautiful Cornish backdrop.
And then comes the real slog – the long moment. The months of writing.
But then, once that novel is written and edited – there’s this brief moment of freedom… and on it goes.
And I love it!
I love it all.
Now, I’m off to write book three of my new series. I’ve just decided who I’m going to kill this time…
Happy reading,
Jenny xx
