Chicks-n-Scratching

Into every writer’s life a little galley must fall. It is as inevitable as death and taxes, and just about as much fun. Now, if you are really lucky, you’ll get more than one shot at fixing all those boo-boos that were missed during the editing process, or formatting mistakes that happened during those pesky file conversions. It really is a very necessary part of the writing to production process. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

Think abou it.

You’ve gone over the same manuscript at least three or four times before you ever sent it off in a submission. Then you read it over again a couple of times during the editing and line-editing process. By the time the book gets to you in galley format, you really don’t give two-shits what happens to your own characters.

And then there are the other times…

Like when you start reading a galley to a book you’ve already started the sequel to, but had put it away to work on something else. Suddenly, you want nothing more than to take that sequel out of the “My Documents” mothballs and dust it off and start working on it again.

This happened to me this past weekend.

I was reading over the second galley of one of my books and started chomping at the bit to start working again on book two. I already have so many projects on deck that the thought of adding just one more is kind of daunting- even if I’m already well into the meat of the narrative. Visions of a hero, thwarted in love in book one, is dancing in my head. I want to see him get his happy ending. He’s a nice guy. And a hunk to boot. The heroine has been the focus of his unrequited love for years. Finally, it seems as if it is time for them to finally fall in love – but of course the nasty forces of novel conflict have conspired against them. Too bad they will just all have to wait until I clear my wip plate.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m probably going to start working on it as soon as I can get my next book out the door.

-Kate

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