Snowed in!

Like most of the country I awoke this morning to find myself surrounded by about a foot of the white stuff. Once upon a time this would have meant no work and much rejoicing, but as I now work from home.....

I completed the general edit of Covenant a couple of weeks ago, and since them my editor at Simon & Schuster, Maxine Hitchcock, has been hard at work on the 'line-edit'. This second round of editorials is a fine tuning of the manuscript, the final polishing where Maxine makes suggestions on the macro scale. Would character 'X' really say something like that? Would they actually do something like that? Does this line need to be in the narrative or can it be cut out? Is there a spot too much exposition here, too little there? And so on. This final run-through irons out any remaining questions that might 'jolt' a reader as they travel through the story, ensuring that everything within the narrative runs smoothly.

I imagine that it will take me at least a couple of weeks to run through this edit, returning the manuscript to Maxine before Christmas. In the New Year, the MS will then be sent to the copy-editor, who has purposefully not yet read the novel. It will be their job to identify technical errors, should there be any, things like time distortions, character's appearances changing and so on.

Meanwhile, in the background book two is taking shape, with opening chapters already in place. Despite the snow outside, I'm enjoying the work too much to go out and play!!