{"id":19114,"date":"2014-08-21T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=19114"},"modified":"2014-08-21T00:01:48","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T07:01:48","slug":"writers-need-editors-and-mine-wants-my-manuscript-turned-in-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/writers-need-editors-and-mine-wants-my-manuscript-turned-in-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Need Editors \u2013 And Mine Wants My Manuscript Turned In, Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Barbara<\/a>
In my writing room with a print-out of the “Wrestling with God” MS. My editor is ready for me to turn it in, but I’m not. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time. Time for me to put the final tweaks and edits on my book manuscript so that my editor can send it off to be formatted \u2013 and published. It\u2019s been years since I started work on \u201cWrestling with God.\u201d I\u2019ve written draft after draft and tried format after format. I\u2019ve been wrestling with that manuscript and what I want this book to be as fiercely as I\u2019ve been wrestling with God and who that might be.<\/p>\n

And now my editor at Patheos Press tells me that, in addition to making my last-minute corrections, I need to clarify some points here and there with a few pithy paragraphs.<\/p>\n

In other words, the book is still not done. Not quite anyway.<\/p>\n

Editors are a good thing, btw. A science writer I worked for back in my Look magazine days, John Osmundson, gave me some advice that I\u2019ve held close ever since.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
This is going to be harder than I thought. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Editors Are A Good Thing<\/h5>\n

Writers need editors, he told me. Editors keep you from looking like an idiot. They keep you from falling through the holes you\u2019ve left in your manuscript, the ones everyone can see, plain as day, except you.<\/p>\n

Also, editors are good for tapping you on the shoulder when you\u2019re about to commit a gaffe. Like writing a newspaper headline that reads, \u201cThe Bachelors Are Back With Their Wonderful Balls.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not kidding. You could slip up and write such a headline. That one actually appeared once upon a time on the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle.<\/p>\n

The Bachelors<\/a> were a club of tony San Francisco single guys who threw big parties \u2013 balls. The club had faded from the scene for a time, and when the Bachelors made a comeback, the Chronicle society pages \u2013 unintentionally? — welcomed them with a raunchy headline.<\/p>\n

The copy editor who let that headline get into the paper was gone, gone, gone by the time I arrived at the Chronicle, but the story was still being told around the newsroom with groans and titters.<\/p>\n

To this day, headline writers continue to put their feet in their mouths. Here’s a hed from from Tuesday’s Houston Chronicle, for example, sent along by my colleague Bill Snyder:<\/p>\n

Police: St. Louis officers kill suspect with knife.<\/em><\/p>\n

Says Bill: “You mean the cops stabbed the suspect?”<\/p>\n

I don’t think so. Not if they’re one of the U.S. police departments with body armor, MRAP’s and M16’s<\/a> to work with.<\/p>\n

Hmm. I see that I\u2019m free associating here. Telling old stories and passing on political commentary and helpful writing tips. Anything to avoid settling down to the 241-page print-out sitting on the desk behind me.<\/p>\n

Clearly, it\u2019s time to stop procrastinating. No more excuses. My summer vacations are over. I\u2019ve visited the daughter in Los Angeles, the brother in Seattle, the son in Minneapolis. It\u2019s time to sit down and finish that book!<\/em><\/p>\n

Just One Last Writing Tip Before I Go<\/h5>\n

Letting go of a book is not easy for writers, a speaker told his audience at a West Coast writers\u2019 conference a few summers ago. It was the last day of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley workshops, and everyone was getting ready to head home to their writing rooms. The speaker, a successful novelist, wanted to give his audience some encouragement.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
My manuscript awaits me. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finishing a book is a challenge, he said. That\u2019s because when we first get that idea for a book, we have such big, gleaming plans for it. We envision a work in which the language will sing, the plot will dazzle, the characters will get up and walk off the page. It will be perfect.<\/p>\n

But the closer we get to finishing the manuscript, the clearer it becomes that what we\u2019ve written is just a book. A pretty good book maybe, but one that, like ourselves, is far short of perfect.<\/p>\n

We aren\u2019t Shakespeare, it turns out. We\u2019re just usins.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, maybe even Shakespeare wasn\u2019t Shakespeare. Maybe he had a heck of a good editor. Maybe he had lots of good editors. Or perhaps he crowd-sourced his work. Maybe he never finished anything, but kept one ear to his audiences, writing and rewriting his plays until they couldn\u2019t help but turn into masterpieces.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. Enough procrastination! My editor is waiting for this manuscript. (That’s another thing editors are good for — giving you deadlines so you get things done.) I\u2019m going to roll my stability ball over to my writing desk right now and sit on it. I\u2019m going to grab a pencil and start slogging through that print-out.<\/p>\n

But first, I think I\u2019ll sharpen some pencils.<\/p>\n

Read about other manuscript milestones at “Yea! A Book Contract for ‘Wrestling with God'” <\/a>and “Yippee! I Did It. I Finished My Book.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Barbara<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to put the final tweaks and edits on my book manuscript so that my editor can send it off to be formatted \u2013 and published. It\u2019s been years since I started work on \u201cWrestling with God.\u201d I\u2019ve written draft after draft and tried format after format. I\u2019ve been wrestling with that manuscript and what I want this book to be as fiercely as I\u2019ve been wrestling with God and who that might be. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[1301,1302,34,1303,513,1304,82,1155,1305,53,69],"class_list":["post-19114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-bill-snyder","tag-copy-editors","tag-dont-miss","tag-editing","tag-look-magazine","tag-manuscript","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-san-francisco-chronicle","tag-the-bachelors","tag-wrestling-with-god","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}