Welcome to the grand unveiling of the official Owls’ Court banner!
Many thanks and effusive compliments go to my big brother and talented artist Talyesin, the professional who constructed this work of art for me and all the little owls. They are quite chuffed, and keep loading the page to see the images of themselves appear.
The solution:
1. We cut most of the offending material, as it’s non-essential.
2. We cite the other book the author published the information in, for the bits we keep.
3. The author never works with us again.
I’ve put too much work into it to cancel the book, so I’m fine with this. We have to recoup the time and money we’ve put in somehow, and publication’s the only way to do it. The manuscript is in galleys now, which is usually the point of no return; you can edit for punctuation or spelling errors, or remove something, but you can’t add anything. Galleys are also known as proofs, and they’re the final step before publication. They show you what the layout of the final book is going to be, and it’s the last chance you have to catch errors.
Thank the Goddess I caught this one before it was too late.
I have a feeling this author’s agent has received a nasty eye-opener concerning her client. I don’t know what the fallout will be, but we reap what we sow, so I’ll leave it up to them to work it out. Interestingly enough, the same agent represents the other author we’ve been working with on the second book, and that’s been sailing along so beautifully that the agent has a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the two situations. The only variable has been the author; the editing team is the same. The agent can draw her own conclusions.
An editor is supposed to be “a partner, not a critic” according to Richard Webster (author of How to Write for the New Age Market), but by this point I’m so unimpressed with the author that I don’t feel that this is a partnership at all; I feel like we’ve been doing most of the work. I know that there are authors out there who hand in substandard work and expect the editing team to polish it for them, and I find this attitude intolerable. I can’t know this author’s attitude throughout this process, but the lack of response to the first set of requests for rewrites, and this previously published material issue don’t do much for my confidence in him. A reader wants to trust the author. The editor helps that happen by making the material as accessible and as interesting as possible. Technically our goal is the same: to create a strong, positive product. So why do I feel so let down?
Everyone slips from time to time. This author claims that the material was a placeholder, that he meant to pull it out and rewrite it, and forgot, and he’s terribly embarrassed. Every single author I know is busy and overloaded with work of various sorts. There are authors out there who write books to pay the bills. This author had two projects that overlapped, and identical material ended up in both. I just happened to browse through the one that got published first. Whatever. His story might be true, it might not. It’s just further proof to me that he doesn’t really care about his readers. It also suggests that he doesn’t respect his subject, either, which as a reader upsets me.
I keep trying to like humanity, I really do. And then something like this happens, and I get all dejected and wonder if anyone’s honest at all.
It seems to be sunny today. I might wander downtown to clear my brain.
As of the end of today’s writing jam, I am officially just over 1/7th done this book. My day’s total included 1,756 words and an hour of math; I’m working on planetary hours. My most important tip, garnered from years of pain and strife: just reduce everything to minutes right away, and save yourself unnecessary grief by using the 24 hour clock.
One-seventh done. Wow. I’m in awe.
My word count currently rests at 11,006 and for some reason, I find this incredibly amusing.
(t! would be proud of this post title. It’s the name of a song.)
I’ve been all over the place this week. From the heights of confidence to the depths of despair, from anxiety attacks to listless not-caring, I’ve seen it all. And it’s only Thursday morning.
While I made dinner and he washed the dishes, I asked HRH if he thought it was my body reacting to a reduction in the dosage of medication I’ve been on for a while and thus I was overreacting (let’s hear it for hormones!), or if things were understandably wonky in my life. He pointed out that while the medication adjustment probably wasn’t helping, not only was I writing a book to deadline for the first time ever, I was teaching, preparing for a concert in two weeks, dealing with the Zombie Manuscript from Hell (now with Shifty Author!), suffering from a lack of sunlight, and had struggled through three colds in succession. He’s also of the opinion that losing my computer has thrown me harder than I think it has. (This is probably true, although it’s oddly liberating at the same time. Of course, I’ve lost all record of log-in info for my website, but that can be remedied by contacting my host and telling them that I’m an idiot and forgot to write things down.)
You know what’s really gnawing at me about the Zombie Manuscript From Hell? The fact that I’d finally reached a point where I was confident about it. I was happy with it, proud to have my name on it as editor. I was confident that it was a solid, saleable product with excellent information delivered in a sophisticated and accessible fashion to the intermediate practitioner.
Of course the info is good. The author had already published it elsewhere.
Argh.
I have no idea where this leaves us. This was supposed to be the lead title to launch the series. Part of me wants to punish the incredible dishonesty of the author by canceling the book. We’ve put so much time, money, and work into it, though, that we can’t. Think of all the rewrites, repeated edits, more rewrites we’ve done. Another option is to do an emergency rewrite on the pages and pages of plagiarized information. I certainly wouldn’t trust the author to do it, so I would likely do it instead, which puts the screws on my own book written for my own deadline.
I shouldn’t worry about this until I’ve heard what the company’s legal recommendation is. I’m creating more stress, which I really don’t need.
My contracts, which were mailed out April 14 but still hadn’t arrived as of yesterday, apparently ended up Returned to Sender because of a mistype on the address label, so they’re being mailed back to me today (and yes, the address has been corrected). It’s frustrating, because half my fee is disbursed upon signing. That means when they get the signed contract back, it goes into the 4-6 week bureaucratic process before the cheque is issued and mailed to me. It’s now delayed by an extra three weeks, which means I’ll get it mid- to late June. Then the bank will hang onto it for a month, which means I’ll finally have that money mid- to late July. The second half of my fee is issued upon delivery of the manuscript, which is due July 1. When you do the math, that means I’ll be handing the dratted thing in before I see a penny. Mind you, it also means that I’ll have the second cheque finally landing in my account mid- to late August, which is nice to count on. And sometime between now and midsummer I’ll see my editor’s fee for the second book, and the first book (if it gets published).
On top of it all, I’m restless, but I don’t want to go out. Just call me an enigma.
Some of you know I’ve taken to costuming fashion dolls, after my stunning success of creating a Morrigan Barbie for a certain cougar last Yule. At the moment I have rough sketches and a few nekkid Barbies in a box, upon whom I’ve been practicing my painting skills to further customise them.
My second secret project is now well under way. Tal saw it last week, and when I said I was in the midst of repainting the eyes, he said, “No you aren’t,” which was incredibly satisfying because it meant he couldn’t tell the difference. What once was a purple-eyed Barbie showing her little white teeth in a plastic smile is now a dreamy green-eyed lass with a demure close-mouthed smile. I’ll let her finish drying and then varnish the paintwork to seal it. Then, ah then, I costume.
I checked the prices of sewing machines at Sears this afternoon; the mid-range model with fourteen stitches and a hard case is $249 on sale till Saturday. Hmm.
Painting and blending the exact shade of natural lip colour was precisely what I needed after alternately wanting to cry and tear things to shreds this afternoon. Writing a severe memo regarding the plagiarism issue made me want to shake the author until her teeth flew out of her head. I can’t write in this mood, but apparently I can paint.
I woke up with every intention of having a wonderful day, and bit by bit it trickled away from me. My cold got worse, I had to deal with a frustrating phone call which involved an elderly gentleman assuming I had taken over a project I’d never been asked to handle, and I only got 1K done on the book when I thought I’d done at least 2K. That last was really the kicker. There are times when I think that what I know wouldn’t fill up even 30K of this book, which is inversely proportional to how I feel when I’m teaching this subject in a live workshop.
I also missed last night’s improv workshop t! whipped up for actor friends because my voice kept cutting out and I couldn’t stop coughing, which annoyed me because I don’t get the chance to do theatre any more. HRH persuaded me to go out for a nice long walk after dinner and took me to the Dairy Queen for ice cream, which was just fine by me. We bought more cold medication on the way home too.
Last night’s dreams were an odd blend of orchestra rehearsing in church basements (courtesy of theatre-associated thoughts, most likely); large sedate toy/department stores which sold beautiful aquariums near large displays of Harry Potter books; Virginia Woolf memorabilia which transported me to being VW as a child when I held it or put it on; fish chained in the aquariums so they couldn’t get out; grocery shopping during the break at orchestra, and not being able to get back in time because I was driving in the sun on the West Island and the car clock was wrong. My dreams have been quite vivid lately. What they mean is anyone’s guess. What on earth do second violins trying to sit with the cellos have to do with VW, or me showing my dad the chained fish crawling out of the aquariums?
Well, well; the radio news is reporting that according to StatsCan, if you make it to your fifth year of marriage, you’re more likely to stick it out in the long run. I take it that the statistics indicate most contemporary marriages dissolve in the first four years. Evidently HRH and I have about four months to save ourselves from a lifetime of loving companionship and intelligent conversation.
Now that our bills are paid and we have groceries, I intend to pick up the new Diana Krall album on my way into the store today. I am determined to be in a good mood, or at least in a better mood than yesterday. I think I’ll pick up the VW biography I put down a few months ago too.
I sent the Undead Manuscript back to the publisher at four-thirty yesterday afternoon. My deadline was next Monday. So there.
Then because I resented having my day’s plans put on hold, I went downtown to shop and buy birthday gifts. It was odd to walk down Ste Catherine Street and hear most people speaking English. This is a phenomenon that occurs only during the Stanley Cup playoffs.
I was also reminded why I don’t like people very much. They’re rude and classless and superficial and self-centered.
Aside from gifts for others, to reward myself for a nasty day I popped into Lush and picked up two bath bombs, one a lovely rose-scent and the other the new Reynard dans les Fleurs scent – Fox in the Flowers. (For those who don’t know, I’m as obsessed with foxes as I am with owls.) It’s as close as I can get to new-mown hay, being severely allergic to all of Nature, and it felt heavenly last night.
Then in HMV I bought the new Susie Arioli Band album, and, er, the newly released Guns’n’Roses Greatest Hits collection. (You know you’re an eclectic music-lover when you bring home two contrasting CDs like this.) I blame ProsperosDaughter and t! for the latter purchase; t! for my original immersion in this sort of stuff, and ProsperosDaughter for bringing the Motley Crue tape along on our last trip to Toronto and reminding me of 80s rock. I also managed to forget yet again that I have an HMV gift certificate left over from Christmastime.
Apart from nasty insomnia last night, I’m feeling pretty okay today. There’s a friendly celebratory brunch for my goddaughter this morning, which I’m looking forward to immensely. Life may get bumpy, but there’s always two-year-olds with birthdays to make things better.