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The copy edits for SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT, the third Merry Gentry book, have eaten most of the last two weeks. I’ve never been fond of copy edits, because they always come when the book is over for me. When I write ‘the end’ at the end of a book, I want to walk out of the house into a book store and see it on the shelves. It doesn’t work that way, not even close, but that’s what I want. I want the book to be DONE. But it isn’t. There are copy edits, and page proofs, and I will be throughally sick of a book before it stops haunting my doorstep. So I always found copy edits a bother, because I was done with the book. But a new demension of bother has surfaced in the last few years. I am writing two series, long books, so that more and more the two series are crossing.
Example, I was almost two hundred pages into the twelth Anita Blake book, then the copy edits for SEDUCED BY MOONLIGHT comes along. I tried to divide my day. Part of the day on Merry and the edits, and the other part of the day on Anita and the first draft, but finally I had to stop, because I much prefer first draft to meticulious editing. Editing is one thing, deciding what stays and what goes. Does this conversation belong here or in another book? Things like that. But copy edits are small changes, a word, a sentence, occassionally a paragraph. Small stuff, bugs me. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. So trying to divide the day between something I don’t enjoy and something I do enjoy, meant that the thing I enjoy eats up most of the day. There comes a point where I simply have to concentrate on the copy edits and get them out of the house. It doesn’t matter what book it is, or what character it is, I would rather do first draft. I also find that I end up reading the book instead of editing. I start by trying to decide how I feel about this reworded sentence and end up pages later reading until the scene stops. I guess it’s a good sign that I can still get caught up in my own book, but it’s one of the reasons that copy edits are hard. I get distracted. I have fallen in love with Frost’s dark moods; Doyle’s steady heat; Galen’s smile; Rhys’s growing power; Nicca’s new found extras; Sage’s surprises; Barinthus rediscovering himself; and the new characters. Adair who hit the page running and won our sympathay. Mistral, who isn’t even one of Merry’s men, but still came to life for me. He, more than most of the new characters metamorphized from note to page, into a very different person. Even Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, showed new depths, and surprises this book. See, I sit down to write about something else, but the world is there at my finger tips, ready to go. I could sit down today and begin book four. It’s soup, ready to be a meal, but today I will be writing Anita.
Of course, I do get to put Richard back into the thick of the triumverate today. Have you ever wondered why one of the first things that Jean-Claude did once he became Master of the City was to negotiate for Damian to come to St. Louis? I’ll finally get to put that reason on paper today. We get to try to explain to Richard’s new girlfriend that no we’re not having sex, we’ve had a metaphyiscal emergency. The fact that some of us are naked is just bad timing, honest. Think she’ll believe that? Me either.
I was ready to write Anita #12 long before SEDUCED was finished. Like I said, the books are crossing more and more, like trying to dream two different dreams at the same time. Now I have the odd sensation of having two books ready in my head at the same time. I guess, I’m really not ready to sit down to Merry # 4, not really. I’d make notes, and outline for a few weeks, and I’m already outlining for Anita # 13, yes, you read right. I already have the plot ready to go for the next anita book, once I finsih this one. And there’s this new idea that’s been niggling at me. Something totally different. I’ve been making notes, character studies, and trying to fight off yet another book series idea, but soon it will be soup, too. I can’t possibly do three series at once, so you’ll have to wait awhile to find out what the new idea is. So many wonderful books to write, and not enough hours in the day. An embarrassment of riches.