I gotta say…

June 21, 2007

I work with some of the coolest people in the world.

Just got off the phone with my Del Rey editor, Betsy Mitchell, who is–really, I still can’t believe I’m *working* with her. I’ve wanted to work with Betsy since, I don’t know, the mid-nineties, anyway, and maybe before. Certainly long, long *long* before I ever got published. That was, like, on my short-list of Things In Publication That I Wanted To Do: 1. Write for DAW Books someday. 2. Work with Betsy Mitchell. 3. there is no #3. That was pretty much the short list. :) Given that I’ve sold the books I thought might be DAW-appropriate to Betsy at Del Rey, well. I’m good with that. I kinda feel like I won the lotto. :)

Right. Anyway. :) Betsy had a few more questions about TQB that she hadn’t addressed in the revision letter (or, in one case, one that shey may not have but had addressed and Betsy’d mentioned in passing, causing me to think she’d discussed it in detail) and some questions about THE PRETENDER’S CROWN that she didn’t really want answered because she wanted to see what was going to happen by *reading* it, but she kind of had to have an *idea*…. :) Anyway, it was a great conversation, and one thing that did get discussed was a bit that I knew so clearly what happened I thought it must be in the book, but apparently it wasn’t. Oops. *laugh* I said, “Oh!” and told her what happened, and she said, “OH!” and thought that cleared it all up. So, er, that’ll have to go in the book, won’t it….

So she’s given me some really good things to think about for the second book, and *God* I’m looking forward to writing it. I really really am. I have to write the third Old RaNegotiator book first, but at this moment in time I’m excited enough about writing TPC that writing HoCh actually sounds like fun. *laugh* Hey, that’s good, though!

I am *almost done* with HoC. Got…70? or so pages to finish tightening up. I’m actually pretty pleased with the end of the book, to my genuine surprise. I will do some more polishing when it gets to the copy edits stage, but I’m going to be happy with what I turn in, which, after nine weeks of revision hell, is really, really a nice thing to be facing.

Off to see if I can’t finish it up tonight (aside from spellcheck and fixing the last of my NOTES:.).