Hey all.  It's been a while. I hope you're all doing well. 

I've been reticent about making an announcement because I keep expecting it to blow up in my face, but it looks like Lycaon Press is actually going to publish Spark.  We're in our second round of editorial changes and it looks like they are not flakes. I can't guarantee the same thing about myself, but it does look like publication is imminent! There's even a cover, which I gotta admit, is pretty exciting after all these years. Lycaon is a small publisher, specializing in YA paranormal. I submitted Spark directly to them, kind of on a whim. The initial publication is only for an eBook but they have released some paperbacks and, assuming the eBook generates some sales, it could happen to Spark someday too. No date yet, but it all seems to be happening faster than I anticipated, so it could be fairly soon. 

So to all of you out there who commented on the book (or any book of mine) while it was posted here, I give you my heartfelt thanks. I haven't been around much, but you're a great community, and I've always liked knowing you were here. And keep on writing. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. 

Best wishes to all. 

Atthys

Atthys! This is wonderful news! Congratulations!!

I am so glad you shared this news. You'll have to update us as the process continues. We definitely want to help you promote SPARK!!

Please let me know when and how I can help personally, too.

Lucy

Thanks, Mimi. Hope you've been well.

Hey Lucy. Thank you. What a kind offer.  I don't know when the book is being released yet but I'll certainly keep you posted.

I'm curious, Atthys. Did you find the submission process to be arduous? What kind of changes did they request?

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One day you're going to find your name on one of my characters. I have a feeling it's going to be a frog, a very intelligent frog, brother to my Ferd, who - I've rethought his role completely - is no enchanted prince after all, just a froggie horridly misled by his fanciful mother.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 8/28/2014, 9:20 AM--

Mimi.  

I would consider it quite an honor. I always imagined I might appear in someone's novel as a homely (but intelligent) animal. 

The editorial process at Lycaon has been educational. Occasionally arduous and aggravating, but mostly not that bad. They loved the story right from the git go, so our only battles have been over style, and so far everything I've gone to bat for, they've acquiesced to (how's that for prepositional phrase endings?). I think she genuinely wants me to be happy with it, and mostly we've been sparring over niggling things. She dislikes auxiliary verbs, and is overly fond of commas, and would prefer if if Francy were a little more in-your-face emotional. I think I've made my case that the past progressive is not, in fact, passive, and I'm not going to quibble over commas (for the most part), but the third is something they're going to have to live with. It's a YA novel, but my own style doesn't lend itself to gushing. Francy's pretty open with the reader, at least by my standards.  

Anyway, that's the sort of thing. 

Atthys

Well, Atthys, here’s what I’m wondering: I have two free-lance editors looking at Sly, both graduates of major writing programs.

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One gives me a macro view, primarily structure. The other gives me a micro view, paragraph to paragraph logic. Neither one objects to my over the top style; they both like it quite a lot. All that backstory is still there, but I've broken it up, and I've shoe-horned in some more active material. Maybe it has made a difference.  

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The two deliver assessments so different a) from each other and b) from the advice I got on Book Country that I wonder, is every editor I run into going to make me crazy with a whole new list of no-no’s? I tremble at the possibility. 

--edited by Mimi Speike on 8/28/2014, 10:30 PM--

Mimi; 

I don't really have enough experience to draw any big conclusions, but I can tell you, I hear radically different stuff all the time.  

One thing I've learned:  Professional editors are big believers in professional editing. Me, I never could afford it. I'm sure the process I'm going through now is making Spark a better book, but some of the changes I've made have been merely different, and not necessarily better. Everyone's got an opinion. All editors have their own stylistic quirks, just like writers do. (I feel lucky, actually, that my editor is willing to acknowledge that, too.) I feel certain that a different editor would love some things that she didn't like, hate some things she did, and come up with new reasons to agonize.  

But no work of art is ever finished.  People are always saying stuff like: "You have to trust your instincts, unless everyone out there is telling you something different."  Sounds like pretty good advice, but all too often, the standard wisdom is just that:  standard. As in safe. As in mediocre. As in same as everybody else.  Familiarity is comfortable for editors and readers alike. About the least likely thing you're going to hear from an editor is: "Wow. That's really different. I don't know how readers are going to react to that, so GO FOR IT!"  Admittedly, that's not their job. And yes, most of the time they're right. If it seems like crap it probably is crap.  But there's a place for playfulness, a place for ambiguity, a place for doing the wrong thing well. I think it's the rare editor (and reader) who's really going to get it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try things.  Jump off the cliff, and learn to fly on the way down.

(I still think Sly could be written by an omniscient narrator who later enters the story as a character. It would allow your particular authorial mannerisms free reign, particularly if the narrator was an eccentric with his or her own axes to grind with the various characters. I know, I just told you to rewrite your whole magnum opus, but it's a good idea.)

I have no idea if I even addressed your question, much less answered it. 

Atthys