I see that a lot of the corrections I’m asking for in these page proofs are things that possibly could have been caught in the copyedit stage, but weren’t. I assume they weren’t pointed out because the copyeditor wanted to leave my prose as close to my original voice as possible, but I wish the slightly clumsy phrasings and inconsistent punctuation in invocations (ah, those commas) had been tagged earlier. Understanding what something says doesn’t mean there can’t be a clearer way to say it. And rereading it fully now, as opposed to going through the CEM edit by edit, I’m seeing places I wish had been pointed out. Oh well; if it’s crucial I’m correcting it; I’m correcting things to maintain consistency of formatting; and anything that misleads at first reading I’m correcting as well.

And still I’m pausing at other places and weighing how important a change would be. Sigh.

I veer between admiring how tightly certain sections are written, and wondering how other such messy bits got past the editors.

Just started chapter eight. I’ve done a chapter and a half this morning already, the same amount I covered yesterday. Fewer edits and corrections to point out today, obviously.