My book is in its second phase of edits, which basically means I have passed it on to my mother to give it a thorough read through before I correct any lingering mistakes and hand it off to the professional editor before I publish it.
Which means I basically cannot speak to my mother until she is done editing it.
I’m seriously going crazy. I mean, literally. If I see my mom, I have to bite my tongue so that I don’t ask her which part she is at, what she thinks so far, what suggestions she has for the back cover, if she thinks I’ll sell a billion copies or only a million, how many copies she wants me to reserve for her friends… Luckily, she has an answer for me to keep me from asking her anything at all.
“You’re going to hate me for all the comments I’ve already made in the margins.”
Oh my god. She hates it. It’s rubbish. I might as well just delete the file and burn the computer I typed it on to ensure there is no proof I ever wrote it.
And then I remember that I actually love this book, and the story, and I really believe in it. And my mom is reading it and correcting any errors I made for free. And I can take the edits that I want, and leave the ones I don’t.
In the meantime, I am refraining from asking her any more questions about the book, even though I am DYING for her to finish so I can pore over every red mark on every page. But I’m sure it’s because she’s so amazed at the talent of her daughter, she can’t tear herself away from the novel. Or she’s trying to find out how to legally disown me as her daughter.
Let’s think positive, k? 🙂