The copyedited ms. of my book has arrived, via DHL, from Chennai, India, where I see my copyeditor has been kind (I hope not too kind) and has also corrected my spelling of Gyanendra Pandey's name.
This is my second-to-last chance with the beast. I'm terrified.
In any case, blogging will be light for a bit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
I actually really enjoy having my stuff copy edited. It's great to have a professional go over my writing and work to resolve points of clarity and grammar/mechanics. I don't think of it as a place to revise, though -- just to tidy/tighten up the prose. Have fun with it!
That seems right, but I'm finding it stressful: all the internal citations to Woolf's letters need to be changed from VWL to just plain L. She didn't do it--just noted an inconsistency with the first one--so I'm hawk-eyed for that.
Then, there is the matter of my proclivity to commit comma splices. My prose drips with them. I don't want the book to and the stress of tracking them down is killing me....
Enjoy. I think editing is the best bit...I'm just getting there now and it feels like smashing a house of cards and rebuilding it more carefully.
Get all those comma changes done now though ... I'm not sure how it works in US publishing but, over here, the author can only correct proofs very lightly. Anything more than 10% and corporate publishers charge it back to the author...I saw a few bills in their thousands!
much love
Louise xx
Comma splices aren't necessarily wrong, sometimes you just want a shorter pause between two sentences. Lots of grood writers use them all the time.
On the VWL thing, I realize it probably needs to be written on the physical manuscript, but could you do a search in your MS word file to at least find the pages you need to change?
Good luck! I am sorry to say I had a not-so-good copy-editor on my academic book, I had to change a lot of stuff back (she had erratically introduced all sorts of inconsistencies, like in TWO-THIRDS the places changing "ed. X Y and Z" to "eds." which is WRONG in Chicago style anyway but at that point I just had to find the others and fix them myself); I felt like an evil author, but it was really extreme... But then I have the soul of a copy-editor, so I do not want anyone else doing it to me....
Post a Comment