Paksworld

And lo, the book is now just under 170,000 words, which was my goal (not my editor’s insistence…she just said snippages might have to be made, and I was motivated to do my own snipping.)    Yes, Old MacDonald’s Farm was running through my head as I was doing the last part (you get silly,  if you weren’t to start with.  “Snip, snip here….snip, snip there…here a snip, there a snip, everywhere a snip, snip.”

In the process I found problems I would have sworn (falsely, it turns out) weren’t there, or had been fixed two weeks ago.   Surely I’d already corrected that clumsy phrase…was Word’s stupid little paper-clip assistant hopping along behind me and unfixing what I fixed?   Surely I’d already noticed that typo in a name (the name is Astil, not Astin…)  and fixed it…but no.  No also to the pair of semicolons side by side, the missing last letters on several words (! what was I thinking!), another couple of pronouns whose antecedents could be misunderstood…all the sawdust and bent nails on the floor of the novel-building workshop.   (Sweep, sweep, sweep,  but there’s always something…)

If there’s one mistake–one typo, one clunky phrase, one factual error, one continuity error–you folks will find it and (even though you’re probably too polite to do this) someone will wave it in the air like a trophy.   But I’m done.  I’m wiped.   It’s going back to my editor tomorrow, and maybe I won’t see it again until the copy editor’s tromped all over it.  Which reminds me, I need to work on a note of gentle guidance for the copy editor.