There are two ways to look at publishing your first novel. My friend Mark Lawrence looks at it this way: you have already won the lottery. With so many good writers out there, and agents and publishing houses drowning in submissions, somehow you got your book noticed, and not only noticed, but in print and on shelves. Everything else that happens after that is a gift. (He says this while simultaneously writing a best seller, designing a rocket ship, and saving his children from terrorists.)
I take a more stressful view: this first book is a chance, a foot in the door, a job interview. After that, you could be a writer for real. You just have to learn to write for a deadline; suck creativity out of your overtired, depressed, distracted head; learn how to write a good sentence the first time instead of the fifth; be professional and adult when discussing your work (harder for me than I originally believed); and come up with a good idea more frequently than once every five years.
Because Mark is right: the first book is a sign of incredible luck. But I think the second book (or trilogy, if you write SFF) is a sign that you are a writer. (more…)
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The first thing I must say about editing is that I have worked as an editor and copyeditor myself. I am accustomed to cutting out flab, reorganizing information into coherent strings , switching out “which” and “that,” and moving commas. When it comes to commas, every company I have ever worked for used the Chicago Manual of Style. The guidelines therein have soaked through me and into my bones, so that when my victims argue against corrections I can respond with, “Chicago Manual 5.30 . . . Chicago Manual 5.33 . . .” holding up that icon of perfect consistency as proof of my goodwill.