Forty pages. I can manage about forty pages of AAs at a time, and then my brain just goes numb. And I have read this book so freaking many times that sometimes I can’t tell if a bad turn of phrase is me or the copy editor. Sometimes it’s clearly me. Others, like when the word “husky” unexpectedly appeared to describe what I am sure was originally a dropping voice, are clearly the CE. The cases in which I as a writer would use the word ‘husky’ are far and few between, and really, really, really did not occur in that particular situation. I’m sure the CE was trying to avoid me using the same phrase too many times and meant well, but NGAAHGH. There are also random sentence fragments that have appeared, and while I’m known to use them, I like to think mine usually at least make sense. There are a number of places in the manuscript where I have now written “WTF” as a note to myself to go look up the original, because if I wrote it that way I need to just be taken out back and shot now, thanks.
I was bitching about this to my mother last night, and she, having read at least a couple of my books in the AA stage, has experienced some of my margin notes. Her favorite was the succinct, “Fuckwit,” which followed upon the correction of “well-lighted” to “well-lit” less than a page after a Hemingway reference. Then there was the one who removed my hyphens in words like “extra-long”, making it “extralong”, which, well, just WTF?
Mostly, copy editors are godsends. This one, in fact, pointed out at least five things that were very good catches and which I was happy to be able to fix. It’s just sometimes, NGAAHGH!
Back on my head.
Husky? Well if you were referring to crossing the Arctic by sledge you might use it.
NGAAHGH is an incredibly good word for CE oddisms. I had one INSIST that ‘everytime’ was a word and that ‘any more’ should ALWAYS be ‘anymore’. Always. And commas, should be, randomly placed because it’s, cool.
It was my first book, my first CE, and I called my editor incredibly concerned and scared. She gave me full permission to fix things and now CE’s are kinda fun. My last one was wonderful, and I hope I can get her again. I think the first one got fired. As, she should, have since she totally fucked it, up everytime, she made a mark.
;)
NGAAHGH!
*cackle*
I so love reading your lj.