Partway through doing my AAs I started to realize that there seemed to be some things I’d sent in with my copy edits that hadn’t made it into this version of the manuscript. Once I finished going through the AAs, I checked my copy edits pages, and indeed, a good half to two thirds of my copy edits hadn’t made it into this manuscript. This would be aggravating enough in and of itself, but the copy-edit version of the ms is printed in a funky font with funky line spacing, and consequently has absolutely no bearing on page and line numbers compared to the AA manuscript, which means going through the whole thing with a fine tooth comb once more in order to *find* the places I need to re-insert the damned copy edits.
And I was so looking forward to sending in a nice short AA sheet in a timely fashion. :P
Although, really, the short part was shot to shit as it was, because in every instance when there is speech inserted in a fashion that is not, “I said,” the copy editor has changed my punctuation.
My punctuation: Brad’s disgruntled, “You certainly didn’t,” came across the room in a mutter.
The CE’s punctuation: Brad’s disgruntled “You certainly didn’t” came across the room in a mutter.
The CE is not *wrong*, because this is a stylistic thing, but it *is* a stylistic thing, and *my* style is to use the frelling commas. I have done this with every book. I have never had to go through the whole manuscript and fix it all again after the copy editor got done with it. Grr! (This is far more annoying than the CE who removed all my hyphens, so words like “extra-long” became “extralong”. WTF, over.) I know in neither case is this a massively bad copy edit, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating. Nrgh.
Nor can I see why the CE decided to change the spelling of “dammit” twice at the end of the manuscript, causing me to have to go through the whole thing and make sure I hadn’t missed places where s/he’d changed the spelling.
Going to bed now. I’ll finish this mess in the morning. :P
Oy. I happen to agree with your copyeditor on the commas in speech (IMHO, “You certainly didn’t” is a single noun, modified by “disgruntled”, and putting commas around it seems as wrong to me as “Brad’s disgruntled, answer, came across the room in a mutter.”) But style is style, and there’s only so much a copyeditor should change.
*passes chocolate*
Why in the world would they not have incorporated your copy edits the first time? Those are clearly *not* AAs at this point, but rather something they bungled.
Hope your next CE is more simpatico.
I suspect, having thought about it, that because the book was late going into production, that the only changes they made were the ones my editor had written into the margins or onto the pages, and that for whatever reason they simply never got to mine. Which doesn’t make it any less frustrating, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.
I can see your point, but looking at the CE’s version gives me the heebie-jeebies. And since it’s my book, I’d rather give you the heebie-jeebies than me. :)
That does make a certain sort of sense, but it’s false economy, since they now have to make those changes in pages. *sigh*
Damnit? Dammit!