I survived the Weekend O’ Copyedits! I am both older and wiser.
Specifically, I have learned that:
– I don’t know when to use further or farther
– I use a lot of unnecessary commas
– I use the verbs leaped, knelt, and dove way too often
– I put far too many things in quotes
But mostly, I am grateful for the fact that three people (three!!) went over my manuscript, sentence by sentence, and made it better. Some people slam “traditional publishing,”* but I am thrilled to be a part of it. Multiple rounds of edits, copyedits, proofs — these things require a lot of work from a lot of people, and will be invisible in the final product if we’ve done our jobs well. I’m on a team now, a team of people who love books. It’s my favorite team ever.
* See? I probably didn’t need those quotes.
Yay! Congrats on getting the copyedits done! I've only seen it from the spousal side, but I know it's no small feat! I hope you're doing something appropriately celebratory!
Thanks, Heather! Alas, i have no time to celebrate — I need to revise book 2 pronto. But after that? Oh, yes. There will be dancing.
I'll do some dancing in my garden for you today! I, too love "traditional publishing" – I loved having three separate passes on my manuscript.
And…still we all missed a continuity error. Oops!