Panic Averted.
Or,
The tale of the different emotions of an editor and author.
(See Messenger screenshots for context – shared with the author’s permission.)
- 1. Me: 🤔 I’m past half way in the edit and some timeline issues have cropped up. Should I flag them for the author to deal with in his edit reviews? Or tell him now and see if we can fix them together? I’ll tell him.
- 2. Him: 🙈 Sprung! He knew I’d pick him up on this. Starts explaining.
- 2. Me: 🤗 Reassurance. Honestly, it’s not so bad. Let’s look at this.
Meanwhile: I send him a grid with the timeline issues outlined (page numbers, quotations). He can see immediately what I mean and why there is an issue.
So, later…
- 3. Him: 😫 Panic. It’s broken. Stop the press! What do we do?
- 3. Me: 🤗 Reassurance. Stopping the press is not necessary. Some strategic line edits can fix this.
- 3. Him: 😅 Relief. Hoorah. I knew there was a reason I hired you.
Or, in his words: ‘Thanks, Claire. You know how to make my life a little easier.’
I may be reading into emotions that weren’t there but this is definitely how it came across to me. There was a brief moment of panic when my indie author client thought he’d screwed up the timeline. But it really wasn’t all that bad. I couldn’t jump in and make the fixes without asking him — there were a couple of things I had to check because they’ll have a knock-on effect to other things he has planned in the series.
But, in conclusion:
- 😁 Cool beans! That says it all. Job done. Panic averted. Top author–client bantz resumed.
📩 If you’d like me to keep your manuscript on track and make your life a little easier, get in touch now. I’m taking bookings for autumn 2022 onwards.
CherryEdits 