Is it magic?

Well, I handed in my edits! Yay! Even did it a few days early. Love that. I have a strange thing to share though. Somewhere along the editing road, my manuscript transformed into a book. I was kind of hoping this would happen. 🙂

What I mean is, that while it seemed like a really good story, and like it had potential (this is not my ego, but my agent thought so and Putnam bought it, so I guess I can say that) to be a book, it was lacking something. I mean, I would read it and think, yeah…yeah…okay…but it just doesn’t seem like something you could bound up and pass off as a novel. It seems like a manuscript still. I was mystified how this metamorphosis was going to take place. In fact, I still am a little! But I was pretty sure it had something to do with an editor and now I’m convinced that’s true.

Basically, my editor called me on EVERYTHING. Big, small, confusing, convoluted, too long, not clear enough, you name it, she made a note and basically asked WTH (what the heck)? And then, on top of all that, she made me cut another 60+ pages. And after I did that, made the cuts, fixed (hopefully) the things she’d asked about, it was like she had waved her red pen over the manuscript and turned it into a book.

Of course, I’m not saying it’s even close to done. Not at all. This was only our second round of edits and the first one consisted of me cutting 65 pages all on my own without any notes from her. Yes, you read that right…I have cut over 120 pages and still have a 254 page manuscript! We still have lots to do. But suddenly I feel like this might just work out! Now if I could only figure out how to get this far with a WIP, I’d be golden!