Can’t believe it’s been a full month since I last posted … how time does fly. But it has been a very productive, exciting month for me on other fronts in addition to this book project.
My author, Chey Barnes, and I are greatly looking forward to today’s National Association of Independent Writers and Editors teleclass with Kindle expert Brian Schwartz. She’s pursuing a number of paths to publication of her novel, and one of the first things we will do once the book is done will be to get it formatted for e-readers, so we believe that Schwartz’s presentation will be a very valuable look into the world of Kindle.
About the project: With first-pass editing long since complete and my quickie second pass under way, I’m setting that part aside for now because the author has asked me to produce a report on how we can improve
Cover of Microchip
Microchip: The Agenda Is Now.
The order in which I’ve done this project might confound some longtime book editors, but it’s the way that made the most sense to me. You see, the novel was somewhere north of 150,000 words in raw form. I started reading it not knowing whether I would be editing it, and quickly realized it was going to be an intensive line-editing job, so I was upfront with Chey about how much work it would need. I proposed doing a first pass during which I would do that needed line-editing, produce a stylesheet, keep a list of characters and chapter synopses, smooth transitions and attributions (the lion’s share of the book is dialogue) and simultaneously keep an eye on character development, setting and plot. That last part would be in preparation for a developmental/substantive editing assessment, which is what I’m doing now.
The “sticking point” I referred to concerns a permissions issue. Microchip is a blend of realistic and non-realistic fiction (much of it is more science fact than science fiction) that is based in large part on known facts that are “out there” in the public domain. In doing her research, Chey won permissions from several publishers of works whose ideas she harnessed in writing the book — ideas about what the underlying facts could lead to for humanity — but the publisher of a best-seller that inspired Chey was extremely stingy in its permission to quote that particular book. As a result, she is now rewriting a crucial chapter that’s also one of the book’s longest.
So our work is still pretty far from being done, but I think we’ve passed the biggest hurdles and are in the home stretch.
“Yourowneditor” is having a mighty fine, FUN time with this book! And Chey’s been great to work with. Stay tuned: I promise the next update will come sooner.
