I’m halfway finished editing a 186K word sci fi novel. It has taken 51 hours to date to do 217 pages, an average of 4.7 pages per hour. That’s pretty darned good for the considerable amount of tweaking and massaging I’m doing.
Heavy copy editing consists of 2–5 ms pgs/hour. Usually an editor charges $40 to 50 per hour for what I’m doing but — because I’m doing it for my cousin — and because I’ll be doing his other novel, too, and probably every novel he writes thereafter — I’m giving him a discount on this one. I was estimating and that’s always dicey. I usually underestimate, which I did here. But I can live with it this time. Now that I know he will require heavy editing in the future, I can confidently charge what it’s worth. He’s happy with what I’m doing, so I probably have a client for life. He’s a creative guy and he tells terrific stories, so I will never be bored collaborating with him, that’s for sure!
I can’t wait for it to get published so I can tell you more about it. I will probably be writing the back cover (sales) copy for it, too.
I hope to be able to take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s Day and do no writing or editing, but we’ll see if I have that kind of discipleine when we get there. Usually when I get a writing or editing task me, I’m anal about finishing it as fast as I can. This manuscript (and author) doesn’t require that, but the characters in it are so intriguing that it’s hard to leave them even for an entire weekend (it hasn’t happened yet!), so heaven only knows how I would manage a whole week without them. Although I’ll feel accomplished when I finish the project, I’ll miss the characters and spend a long time thinking about them after everything is wrapped up.
That’s what happens when you read a good book.
It stays with you pretty much forever.
In Other News…
My oldest goat, Jazzy, probably isn’t much longer for this world. She isn’t sick, just old, and there’s nothing I can do about that.When I got her ten years ago I was told she was four “or so;” Lisa thought she was older. She’s a pygmy, and the average life span for pygmies is 12 years, so she passed that milestone at least two years ago, probably longer.
So, recently I’ve spent quality time (in this chilly weather) grooming and massaging her, which she loves. I’m feeding her health supplements and she’s eating and drinking well. She isn’t unhappy, but she’s no longer nimble and doesn’t move around much except to relocate to warm spots in the sun as it wends its way across the sky every day.
It’s a melancholy time. I hate losing pets — and my goats, chickens, cats and fish are all pets! You ought to see the way they gravitate to me (yes, even the fish) when I’m in their line of sight. Open the back door, and the chickens come running, the goats call out to me and return from wherever they are in the pasture to get closer to me, and the cats head in my direction. Heck, even the crows beckon me when I go outside, ’cause I feed them, too.
I love critters and they know it.
If there are no animals in the hereafter, there’s no hereafter I want to inhabit, so pushing up daisies will be my final destination, if I have any say in the matter!
Life without animals would be hell for me, no fire or brimstone required. (P.S. I don’t believe in hell and don’t believe in the idea of the heaven I learned as a child. There may well be something out there beyond the veil, but hell and heaven — as depicted in popular culture and by evangelical scaremongers– are NOT it. I’m firmly convinced of that.)
