Friday night I went out for beer and pizza with friends. When I got home, there was a package for me. It was my copyedited manuscript. As most writers know, there are two types of edits when you have a book published. The first is the serious edit, where you and your editor discuss your story, your voice, your characters, all the important writing craft things. Jim Frenkel is my editor and he's been in the biz for decades and worked with people like Issac Asimov, Philip K. Dick,, Vernor Vinge, Jack Williamson, and many other great writers. So I was a bit intimidated to work with him. But he was great. He likes my book, likes my writing (which is why he signed me in the first place) and his suggestions for my book were great. He didn't force any changes on me and only wanted to make my book better. In the end, he did.

But copyediting, that's different. I hate copyediting and I know a lot of other writers do as well. It's a lot of nitpicking of details, factchecking, typos, etc. I don't envy the people who do that kind of thing and I don't wish to have their abilities or personality. But I appreciate it and know it's important. And because of one of these people, I have more than 300 pages of redmarked manuscript to go through. I have until Oct 4 but I should get it done faster. I'm going to hate this work but it's all part of the process.