Wednesday, May 2, 2012

While I Wait...

No one ever told me that waiting for the next steps after signing a contract could be so hard. You think that once you hear "yes", everything will get easier. Maybe it's because waiting between "No" is no longer a big deal.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't really had to wait long. A total of 20 days passed between me signing the contract and getting it back in the mail. That's a snail mail issue and nothing else.

  • During that time I worried that my contract got lost in the mail.
  • Or exploded in some massive highway pile up between here and there.
  • I worried that WiDo changed their minds and didn't know how to break the news to me.
  • I thought, "Oh, no. I've already proven to them that I'm highly unstable emotionally and they are working to get me committed." No, wait, that's my family.
  • I thought maybe I made the whole thing up. My family accuses me of that all the time because I have conversations in my head and I forget which ones took place in the real world and which ones were imaginary.
Needless to say, when the contract did show up with a nice letter welcoming me to the family, I was RELIEVED! There was also information on my editor and a note to shoot her an email. Which I did as soon as I finished cooking, serving, and eating dinner. See, I can show some self restraint.

She replied the next morning with instructions and I'm so excited to get started. The first round will be a general read on her part with comments on plot and character structure/development. Once we get all the holes filled and things squared away there, we will move to a scene by scene edit.

This is the one I'm excited about. I kept trying to tell myself I needed to do this, but just couldn't muster the energy. Knowing someone will help me has motivated me again.

And finally, we will do the line by line edit. Somewhere in there we will get an idea as to when Sendek will be released. I'm trying to prepare myself for Fall of 2013, but hoping with hard work I might be able to swing an earlier release. However, I have no idea how any of that works and I'm completely willing to leave that up to my new besties.

14 comments:

  1. Patience is a virtue...and I want it now!

    Congratulations.

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  2. Testing Rafflecopter to see if it works. :)

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  3. Glad the contract didn't explode between here and there!
    You'll like working your editor. My publisher likes to do three rounds of edits, with the final one being after review copies are sent out.
    And so close to five hundred followers - cool!

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    1. Me too! I'm really excited to finally work with an editor.

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  4. Did you like Lev Grossman's "The Magicians"? I thought it was a knockoff of Harry Potter meets Narnia with more adult stuff in it was all. I think I might have liked it more if people hadn't said "OMG MIKE YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK IT IS THE BEST THING EVER!!!! AND SO ORIGINAL!!!!" So I had all these expectations, ya know...and then went to it and was like...this isn't original at all?

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    1. Your description fits it perfectly. I suffered through it, but wasn't going to say that cause I'm trying to give it away! LOL

      I'm hoping someone else will love it even if I didn't.

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  5. I'm so excited for you! taking notes...cause you know...even though I'm only 2 chapters in... :) heheh.
    @Michael...I felt the same way about "The Magicians" I don't think I even finished it. Got really annoyed with it.

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    1. LOL, now I may not even be able to GIVE it away.

      And I know lots of us are going to go through this process *soon* so I wanted to be honest about how crazy it still makes me. What's with us writer types anyway?

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  6. Congrats on being so close to 500 followers and I totally relate to the pre-contract nerves ;)

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    1. :) *maniacal laughter* At least it wasn't eye twitch worthy. LOL

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  7. The best thing to do while you wait is to write the next book so your fans won't have to wait so long for the next one. :)

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    1. Amen! That's what I keep telling my hubby and that's why my goal was to finish Orek (book 2) and completely outline Battle for Sendek (book 3) by the end of the year. He's not on board yet.

      The good news is I already have 50K words of stuff I can use for the second book, but I feel it needs a lot of reworking. Thankfully, I have a better understanding of my characters and the overall plot arc now than when I wrote that 50K two years ago.

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  8. Oh lol, Charity, how did I miss this post? It really cracked me up. Well, glad you are now on a nice stable emotional keel and beginning your edits!

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    1. Ha, ha! Yep, I promise I'm not completely crazy. Most of the time. It's amazing what finally sending the MS off to Amie did for me. I was able to finally let go, which was good. Now if I can only get my family on board with my "waiting" goals. ;)

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