Wow.

I've completely gutted Chapter Five in Childhood's Tears and scattered bits and pieces into Chapters Six and Seven and cut parts of Chapter Six out completely and Seven's not looking so good.

I do admit, I'm liking it a whole lot more than the initial pass, but it's still not natural for me to be editing before I reach the end of a book. I thought this might take a few weeks. This may be an entire summer just to catch up to where I start putting new stuff in.

Yikes.

I may have completely edited out two entire sections. I know you're supposed to be brutal when you edit, but this is darn right homicidal (? - libracidal?). I have saved them out into a new Word Perfect file. I may be able to use one of these little sub-plots later rather than now. *lifts one eyebrow* In fact, one would be perfect for later in the book. Bwah-ha-ha. Yes, once again, I have outfoxed you, plot monster.

Tomorrow I'll be trying to squish the left-overs from Chapter Five into Chapter Six with a slight twist on them to make it a tad more creepy. We'll get back to the swashbuckling in the chapter after that.

But, that's tomorrow.

I got my editorial comments back for my Stargate novel this morning.

To quote "Mr. Tanner" - "The critics were concise but no one could accuse them of being over kind."

Ow.

I read through some of the comments I received and I went through the various stages one usually goes through. However at the end, the editor asked if I wanted to see the actual edits and we could discuss doing a re-write and set a new delivery date.

I wanted to reply - "Hey, you only gave me eight weeks to finish this and I have a regular job on top of that." "Hey, you approved that part in the synopsis and now you don't like it?" "Hey, if I had more time, maybe I would have caught a couple of those facts I got wrong."

What did I reply?

"Sorry it didn't work for you. Absolutely I would love to see the edits. I appreciate you giving me another shot."

Why?

Because that's what being a professional is. I had submitted something they found sub-par. It's their call, it's their license. It was time to take the big-boy pill and check the ol' ego into the hotel for a while. Yeah, it hurt. But, I've always told people, if you can't take critique, don't be a writer. Time to live up to my own words.

I received the edits this evening after I came home and read through them. I agree with about 90% of them. Still I have to go through and see what's left in the story, review the comments again from the initial letter and then go back to the editor with a plan on how to bring the story more into line with what they want it to be.

I knew the initial edits might be rough. It's a new franchise for me to work for and a new editor to learn what they like and don't like. I have to admit, I didn't expect it to be this bad, but they didn't kick me off the project. I'll take that to mean they must have seen something in my writing that made them want to salvage this.

*rolls up the sleeves*

Time to get to work. More to follow after I sleep on the edits I read.