Officially submitted “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem” to the Steve Laube agency today.  Looking forward to hearing back that they loved it…cause if they didn’t, I won’t hear back from them at all.  🙂

Finished the first editing pass on TDaC 1 last night – many thanks to those who sent in their edits and thoughts.  Still have a few changes to make in the next six days, but am still on target for my official completion of the end of August. Assuming nothing major pops up between now and then, I can put this one “in the books” and move on to the next project.

That brings me to my next quandary: do I go straight to kindle, or do I at least give an agency a swing at it?  There are agencies that specialize in Christian themed books, and I know these sell pretty well, but is it worth the time and anxiety to wait?  My current thinking is to blanket the agencies between now and November and see what I can get; if nothing pops, go kindle in December. Gonna have to pray on that one and see what comes out.

As far as my next project goes, Kevin and I are still working on book two of our series. Ball is in my court for chapter nine, but TDaC has really eaten my time. Makes me hesitate a bit on whether to start book two of TDaC right away or squeeze in something shorter while the plot finishes percolating. I knew way back what the big deal with TDaC 1 was, but I haven’t had that full AH-ha moment with bk 2 yet. Sigh…the tough life of the creative minded 🙂 

And so it came to pass that the writer received (most of) his feedback and armed himself for the next great leg of the quest: the editing.

With most of the feedback in and ideas for fixes firmly growing in my mind, I find myself ready for the daunting task of editing. This is where I take my beloved book, stare it right in the face, and for the first time openly say, “Baby, you are UUUUUGLY!  I’ve seen some ugly books in my time – yeah, I’m looking at you [NAME REDACTED FOR FEAR OF DESCENDING HORDES OF FANS] – but you, little Mr. “TDaC: AH”, you take the ugly cake!” 

In terms of people, all babies are beautiful, especially yours.
In terms of writing, all books are flawed…none more so than yours.

Editing is tough. It means approaching your work with a fresh set of eyes, a task that is fundamentally impossible to do when you’re the one who actually wrote the thing. Yes, there are tricks, but in the end it’s still your baby, your work, your mental blood, sweat, and (sometimes physical) tears. Taking any type of instrument, be it blunt or sharp, surgical or broad, and applying it to your work can be painful. It can be a good type of pain, like that you feel after a serious workout, or a bad type, like when you stub your toe at one in the morning on your kid’s bouncy chair right outside his room and don’t want to scream for fear of waking him and subsequently his mother who would have to feed him to get him back to sleep so you have to hold it all in until it passes but that only makes it hurt worse so you sit down right on top of a naked Barbie doll from one of your other kids and…well…that kind of pain, yeah.  Regardless of the type, pain is pain, and no one likes to hurt. Except maybe editors. Or dentists. But let’s be honest; the giving side and receiving side of pain are two different kinds, so let’s move on.

On the positive side, being in edit mode is like being in the seventh inning of baseball. I’ve had my time away – my stretch, so to speak – and now I’m ready to get back in the game.  Gonna take this one all the way home, leave nothing on the field, swing for the fences, add in a few more spots metaphors…whatever it takes to get the job done.  Shouldn’t be too hard; most of the game has already been played. I once read that Joss Whedon said to do the fun stuff first and then do the dog’s work of connecting everything together, because that way you have something you already like when it is finished. For me, the editing is d the dog’s work. I already have something I like; now it’s time to polish it up and let it shine.

Important as it is to finish this game and log it in the play book, it’s even more important to remember there’s another one waiting in the wings to be played.

P.S./Note to self: writing a book on writing in the form of a tongue-in-cheek fantasy quest would be hilarious. Do this…next season.

After weeks of primping and crimping and preparing and panicking and etc and so forth, the first official Rough Draft of “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem” is finally in my beta readers’ mailboxes.  May God have mercy on their souls.