My friend Michael (thevelv.blogspot.com) is in the throes of editing a wonderful biography of his mother Catherine Duncan who was an actress, artist and witty and observant commentator on life. Mike’s book will be released through Macmillan next year and so he is in the clutches of the dreadful ‘R’ word. Or the ‘E’ word if you like. Revision, editing, it’s all the same. This is what he says in a recent blog:
Once I wrote a first draft for a story. Then I revised it and it became a second draft. Then I revised it again and it became the third draft at which point I sent it to a consultancy for a report and it came back and I revised it again. Sent it back, further revisions. Then came the invitation to send the all-important first 50 pages with a view to it being called in. Sent it. More tiny revisions. Each time it’s like trying to find specs of dandruff on white velvet!!!
The below opportune post came from literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog this week. I say opportune because I had just received the first 50 pages back (again) from the literary consultancy and it appears they want me to fine-tune it that bit more and if it evens out, they say they will call it in.
My writing life has the capacity to be chaotic at the moment. Flittering from one direction is the fine-tuning of Paperweights, from another comes the continued creation of the story of The Shifu Cloth, from another direction still comes the writing of a short-story for Bo Press’s new limited edition Masked Ball box and book, and from the busiest corner of all, the development of the ‘virtual’ Masked Ball.
I think I might have broken the back of the edit. I have addressed every point the editor reported and now want to print off the ms into hard copy and read it as per a book but with a red pen in hand. I imagine, that with good luck and a fair wind, I shall have finished and be ready to send it back to London for final comment by the end of next week. Marketable or not. Waiting for the answer will be excruciating.
After watching an episode of In The Night Garden, my dose of calm and equilibrium for the evening, I have decided that to escape over the ocean while I wait for an answer is the way to go. Just me and Upsy Daisy, maybe Iggle Piggle and the Tombliboos,
Pinky Ponk
all in the Pinky Ponk as it floats on clouds of what seems to be expressed air (farts in more commonplace language). We shall fly over my little bay outside the window and I shall watch the boats and the gulls, the dolphins and the divers. We shall fart and dip over Maria Island and return on the crest of a sea-breeze and I shall have ditched my anxiety, like so many farts and noxious ballast, and be ready for as straight an answer as London can give me.
Yesterday, I flew through the first 37,000 words, in 8 hours of editing. Finnian had entered the souks of Fahsi and was being seduced by the offerings, not the least of which were the hashish and opium dens. Oh, said self, this is all going so well, I’ll be on the beach in no time.
