… but at least I am on one again.

I officially have a new editor for Space Crazies! The editor Liz recommended turned out to be a great fit for what I’m looking for, so I officially signed up with Pat of Lucid Edit!

I booked her mid-June slot for a big, complicated, possibly-witchcraft (there’s going to be a BOOK…MAP??? in SPREADSHEETS???) developmental edit. She normally takes around a month, but after doing an initial read/skim for the sample edit, agrees Space Crazies has a lot of moving parts (plus there are a couple of long weekends coming up) so she thinks it might more like 5-6 weeks. I’m okay with that.

It does mean that I won’t get the manuscript back until August, after which I’ll need some time to parse and process the changes, revision plan, and book map. Then there are planned cottage trips and friends visiting. Being ready for September’s #PitMad is extremely unlikely, if not downright impossible, so December’s round it is. I mean, I said as much before, but now it’s more official. I’m a bit disappointed but basically resigned. It does give me more time to wrap my head around the work, do it properly, and send it for final eyeballs while I write up my query letter, all of which make for a stronger submission package.

A developmental edit is not cheap (Pat herself called it ‘the Cadillac’ of services that she offers). And there is no guarantee that I will make that money back since I may never sell Space Crazies to a publisher. But a full DE gets me a little closer to that goal and–more importantly–will help me level up my own editing skills, maybe even my writing skills.

I’m looking at this all as an opportunity to learn as much as I can about the theory of editing; I plan to treat it like a personalized editing course/retreat. If I do my best to not just follow along with her suggestions but really try to understand why she’s making them–which I have a lot of optimism about; she’s very clear in all her emails and the sample edit–then I can apply what I learn to other, less complicated manuscripts like Blackout Odyssey.

Or Embers.

Embers has a lot of moving parts too–not as many as Space Crazies, but still a few–and it’s in worse shape since I meandered far more than usual. I don’t know if I even have the know-how at my current level to even begin editing it properly; that’s part of the reason why I’ve been putting it off. So beyond getting Space Crazies ready to sell, what I’m really hoping for is to gain enough experience to take apart Embers and then Ignition on my own, without needing to buy another Cadillac.

The way I see it, the next 6 months-to-a-year will be mostly editing. Maybe some short stories in there, maybe I’ll finish Fletcher & Cooper, but I probably won’t even (heavy sigh) do NaNoWriMo this year. I need to clear this backlog.

That’s what it looks like from where I’m standing right now, anyway. Best laid plans, etc. Who knows where I will be in six months! But at least I am back on tracks now, and know (roughly) where I’m going.

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In the meantime, while I wait on Space Crazies, I plan to do as much short-story writing as I can. I’ve got one that I wrote back in February that still needs typing up; two ideas for shorts; a half-finished Sinferrean novella from last summer, and of course F&C. Plus figuring out what I’m going to do next with Blackout Odyssey. I’d like to make a dent in that list by the end of July which means submitting is going to fall by the wayside, but that’s all right. I can’t do it all. Even as much as I want to.

Wish me luck!

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A reminder that Liz Hirst’s Face in the Marsh launches this Saturday at Glad Day Books! If you’re in TO, come join us!