Category: First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival

Today, I received the page proofs for The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. While still a stack of unbound pages, it is a stack of unbound pages on which the words, page numbers and other things have been typeset as they will be see once the book is printed.

There is the title. There is my name under the title. And I’m suddenly all nervous. Why? At this stage, it’s too soon to worry about sales. No, what’s been worrying me lately is the prospect of anyone in real life assuming anything in the book is based on them (uh, rather than all of it being based on me).

I guess the “pure” artist would say, “To hell with what other people think and feel. The novel gets what the novel demands.”

Myself, I think “pure” artists are assholes.

Then again, as I didn’t base any of the characters off of real people, I shouldn’t be worried about it. I guess it’s just realizing I’ve crossed the point of no return. There’s the line in the letter accompanying the stack of papers. “Please be aware that only corrections can be made at this time; text cannot be rewritten at this stage of production.”

Dear lord, it’s set in stone. Except on paper.

So that’s that. Okay. End of nerves. No one likes a neurotic. Especially when the neurotic should be celebrating his good fortune rather than nibbling on his nails.

Rewrite. It’s an ugly, ugly word. Anyone who’s been in grad school or part of the journalism industrial complex knows the power of that word to strike fear into the heart. Rewrite. Then rewrite again. And again. A guy who went to grad school with me … hold on, Googling … this guy, Joe Camhi, wrote a horror poem, in the style of The Raven, in which a grad student’s dissertation adviser sent the student back for rewrite “ever more!”

So you’ll understand my elation when I got the following email from my editor at Kensington Books.

All of the revisions are great, and everything works and looks smooth to me. If not, the copyeditor will catch it. So I’m putting through for the acceptance payment, and the next step will be copyedits in a couple months.

Woohoo. I’m done with The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. Well, except for battling with the copy editors (I was once a copy editor, though you wouldn’t know it by my typos). And picking the cover. And the author’s photo. And trying to drum up sales. And worrying that no one will review it. Then worrying that the people who review it are going to hate it. Then worrying no one will buy it.

But other than that, I’m done with the writing bit! And I’m getting paid again.

Though that little bit of money isn’t going to make up for the 10% cut in salary we took at the day job yesterday. Ah, well. such is life.

Now, back to the next book. I’m halfway done with that first draft. Sweet.