Wednesday, February 23, 2011

WIP Wednesday is Jealous


Oh, Sisyphus, how I feel for thee.

I'm on comment #1138 out of #2677 from an editor's pass on a book. None of the edits were changes to the text...oh no...they were just comments. 2677, people! Thank Zeus for digital files. If I had to do all of this on paper, I'd shoot myself. I just might, anyway, and then come back to haunt the editor in question.

So my WIP is jealous because I'm putting it on hold until I scratch through the rest of this ridiculous pile of comments. Thank goodness I've managed to send out my eighth Write 1/Sub 1 entry.

11 comments:

Anthony Rapino said...

I reiterate my earlier tweet: Yikes! I have yet to have a full novel edited (I'll experience that pleasure later this year), but that certainly seems like a lot of comments. Is that normal?

Aaron Polson said...

In my experience, no. It's my story collection--half of the stuff has already been published. Some of the comments are nit-picky, others just wrong (e.g., placing a comma before a subordinate clause).

Sigh.

Cate Gardner said...

"others just wrong (e.g., placing a comma before a subordinate clause)."

This scares me as I'd probably think they were right and agree to the changes. Stand up for your words, Aaron.

Katey said...

As I said on Twitter: Dude.

Man. I don't even.

Bobbie Metevier said...

This scares me, too. Sometimes, the qualifications for being an editor are simply to be the loudest person on the proverbial message board.

Every now and then someone's nephew gets fired off the fry crew at Wendy's and Uncle Publisher hands him a big red crayon.

Don't even get me started!

Aaron Polson said...

Cate - I will/am. Some of the changes are good, but overwhelming. I used to use too many prepositional phrases. That's for sure. ;)

Katey - I'm exhausted.

Bobbie - I get the vibe this editor is fresh out of grad school. (and I won't get you started...promise)

Michael Stone said...

Oh boy. The editor sounds zealous, to put it mildly. I don't envy you.

Aaron Polson said...

Mike - I'm on comment 1532. Hoping to get past 1600 tonight. Ugh.

Andrea Allison said...

I've reviewed a couple of books that could have used an editor like this. No excuses for so many spelling mistakes in a book that isn't an ARC. Otherwise, I think that's outrageous. I wish you luck combing through them all.

Anonymous said...

One of my recently published tales went through a few rewrites with probably fifty edits -- and I thought THAT was a little frustrating. 2677...Holy cow...

Aaron Polson said...

Andrea - Rest assured these are not spelling errors. Oh no...

Milo - I'm doing it, though. Baby steps. I'm doing the program. :\